How a farmer master his craft using them and how you can use them too
I don’t know you, but in my case, I have been actively looking for ways of how to become good a what I do — writing code and writing pieces like this you are reading now.
Over the years, I have been trying to improve my programming and writing skills, trying and testing different techniques and approaches.
Over that discovery phase, I’ve realized that it is not only about how we consume information, but it is also about how we process, use, and retain that information and store in our long-term memory.
It’s all about what techniques we use to speed the process up and become a more effective and efficient learner.
Our first, second, three, and the nth-goal is to figure out a way that allows us to become better, better, and better.
You will say — Bob, anyone learns in different ways. I know it too.
Yet, throughout this post, we will discuss a few things farmers use to master their craft and face hard tasks.
One of those and bet to say the most important one is the Curved Machete technique.
The most exciting part of this is how we can use that technique to become damn good and better at what we currently do.
Are you ready? Let's got straight to it.
While I was pruning the trees and cleaning the weed
When the COVID-19 shook the world, I was not living in the city.
I moved to the countryside — the place where I was born and grew up.
At the end of April and the whole May is the right moment in my country to seed corn since it is when the winter starts.
I learned that from my dad when I was a child — teen.
Based on that and since, I had decided to seed corn and get out my fingers from the keyboard for a while.
A weekend I decided to prune the trees and clean the weed. This is a must if we want to seed any seed. Just in case you don't know it.
Yet, I had a problem, this was not related to on how to prepare the land, but how we learn new things. Luckily, I had a solution too. Let’s dig into it now.
Consuming and Learning without retention — it's fruitless — a big problem
Every single day we are consuming new pieces of information, and we are trying to process and retain it without any luck.
You will not let me lie — the information out there is so huge that sometimes we feel overwhelmed.
In this sense, you probably have already faced that frustrating moment when you realize that you took a course a few months ago, watched an amazing and helpful video, read a great post but a few days or weeks later you only remember at most the headline, or you only remember part of the main idea.
What happened there?
What’s going on here is that we are learning without a strategy or an effective technique.
It is so obvious — we are becoming the best consumers instead of the best creators.
Either way, we are trapped by the trends and our learning process is inefficient and ineffective.
Then we got frustrated!
Yet, did you recall I told I got I solution too.
The Solution — The Curved machete technique
Farmers use different techniques to face hard tasks in order to get them done.
The Curved Machete technique is just a name I am using to match up the most important technique that farmers use on their daily basis.
So let’s dig into it just right now.
Sharpening the Curved machete quite often
It turns out that while a farmer is pruning or cleaning the weed, he doesn’t wait until his curved machete is a blunt knife.
He knows he must be sharping it often.
A farmer knows very well that by doing it, he is ensuring to move forward as much as he can with the same speed and effort.
Otherwise, he knows he could be working really hard without moving forward — meaning no progress but losses of energy and time.
As an engineer and writer, I am looking for the same aim.
I bet to say that you also want the same goal, isn't it?
You and I are trying to move forward as much as we can, trying to grasp and process all information.
Our end goal is doing it with the same or even better speed and less effort. Yet, we are not able to accomplish the goal.
This is because either our technique is ineffective or, in the worst case, we don’t use any strategy or technique.
In order to achieve that, we need to embody the Curved machete sharpening cycle.
I would describe it as a continuous and repeated process to improve our creativity, problem-solving, resolution process, technical communication, and programming fundamentals skills.
Therefore, we don’t need to wait until our muscle we have developed goes away.
We have to come back to the same information we learned yesterday, two days, or even three days ago to create the necessary connections our brain needs to give priority to those pieces of knowledge.
The idea is not to memorize it but develop understanding and create the number of needed neuron connections our brain needs.
If we now make comparisons with the Curved machete technique basically we are sharping our machete (writing, programming, problem-solving skills) often avoiding it turns into a blunt knife.
The Process of separating the wheat from the chaff
In the farming field, another interesting thing is the process of separating the wheat from the chaff.
This reminds us of the importance of sorting the valuable from the worthless.
In that regard, as engineer and writer, I need to do the same.
We should be able to avoid any worthless things for the sake of our learning process.
I would say, avoid learning stacks and trending topics while you are learning.
Today's world is the best distractor ever existed. You are easily distracted, so try to give real and the highest priority to your topics you are learning, instead.
As long as we stay focused on what really matters for us, our harvest will be better.
Resist the hardness of sun
Farmers work under the sun, so this is really hard.
If you have had the chance to work, in the farm, you really know how hard this is.
So their task requires physical and in a certain way phycological strengths.
They usually take small breaks to breathe, drink water in order to re-energize themselves.
We should do the same while we are learning or trying to master our craft. The bunch of information we need to grasp is overwhelming.
Avoid at all before you fall into the burnout.
Ending Thoughts
Regardless of the industry or field, we should get into a continuous, sustainable, and repeated process if we want to become a better and better at what we do.
The Curved machete technique reminds us of the importance of going back to the same information we learned a few days back or even older learned-knowledge, in order to create the necessary neuron connections our brain needs to retain it automatically.
It would be great to have the techniques you use. Drop them in the comment section.
Thanks for reading!
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