Let me tell you a story first. See if you've fallen into this trap. ▼ One day, a friend shows off a term to you, "knowledge flexing." Impressive! How did they know it? They forwarded you a public account. You start following it, thinking, "Wow! A guru! Awesome! I'm learning so much!" You scroll through it every day, every day, every day. Many problems now have solutions—at this rate, in three years you'll understand the ultimate secrets of the universe. Gradually, you follow a dozen similar accounts, covering everything from your profession, life, work, running, weight loss, diet, relationships... all areas—well, you can't keep up, so you decide to improve efficiency with fragmented learning! You use every spare moment: read an article on the subway, read one during meals, scroll through two before bed. If your eyes can't handle it, you use audio; if you can't finish during the day, you listen while running—but you still can't finish! Luckily, there's a bookmark feature, so you bookmark everything! This is also called "squirrel syndrome"—constantly hoarding, hoarding, hoarding... When your unread bookmarks exceed 100, you finally realize that bookmarking equals never reading again, which makes you depressed. What's even more depressing is that you seem to be falling further behind the big-name writers—during your "learning" time, those 100 gurus seem to have gotten even better. Moreover, there seem to be more and more impressive people, with newer and newer viewpoints. Every day, someone uses a completely new approach to overturn the previous guru—"Wow, so this is the right way!" Forget the universe's secrets; you start to deeply doubt life... No amount of chicken soup can hide your growing frustration—indeed, the world is full of people like you who just scroll through countless articles. You become increasingly anxious, until one day, you completely collapse and say to yourself, "Why am I living so tiredly? I'm just an ordinary person; why bother growing? I want to be a pig, a piece of meat, a corpse." You start turning to entertainment, novels, and short videos... If this hits home, raise your hand. ✋✋✋ What makes you want to slap yourself even more is that after a few days, you recover and start the cycle all over again—scroll, scroll, scroll. Anxiety disorder, squirrel syndrome, and laziness—the three incurable diseases of this century—are actually a vicious cycle. ▼ Why does this happen? Because all modern people face two problems: information overload and knowledge fragmentation. Information overload is an old topic, so I'll just share a few data points:
Worldwide, 4,000 books are published every day, with over 400 million characters;
The New York Times contains as much text in one day as a contemporary of Newton would read in a lifetime;
In a single professional field, about 200 public accounts are registered daily, and nearly 1,000 articles are produced... In the past, generalists and naturalists could exist, but in modern society, they can't compete with Google or Baidu. Humans have long been surpassed by computers in knowledge storage; the core competitiveness of learning now lies in the ability to search and link knowledge. Another trend is also clear: knowledge fragmentation. This fragmentation starts from three aspects— First, time and space are broken up. Mobile phones allow you to listen to a book in three subway stops. Second, information is broken up. If you browse Zhihu, Toutiao, or a blog, you don't know what the previous chapter was about or what's coming next, unlike reading a book. Except for clickbait titles, you have no expectation of the next blog or content; you're just passively receiving. The worst is the fragmentation of knowledge structure—you don't know who said this, under what circumstances, or for what problem. Without context, all information is nonsense. For example, when I was reading management articles, I found that Lei Jun, Fu Sheng, Peter Drucker, Wu Bofan, Jack Ma, Wu Xiaobo... all these big shots gave completely different answers to the same question. Who should you believe? Actually, Lei Jun was talking about the internet industry; Fu Sheng was talking about small business comebacks, as he's an investor; Peter Drucker was using management to discuss philosophy; Wu Bofan was discussing Chinese and Western culture; Jack Ma was motivating the masses; Wu Xiaobo was actually discussing finance through management—more importantly, you know nothing about the occasion, timing, or audience of their speeches. Without search skills, you won't know the background; without thinking skills, you won't know why—so simply knowing a quote is worse than not knowing it. The brain of someone who constantly scrolls through WeChat Putting the two conclusions together, the result is clear: fragmentation of time and space can indeed improve learning efficiency (though it still can't beat computers), but information fragmentation and knowledge structure fragmentation bring about a decline in learning efficiency and are a source of anxiety—because they destroy your active search ability and active linking ability, which are your deep thinking abilities. This is the trap of fragmentation: it greatly increases useless information while reducing the most important ability for independent thinking. Deep thinking is difficult and requires time and space; it's much harder and longer than quickly clicking on another article with an interesting title and funny content—but at this point, 90% of people will choose to click on the next topic—and your path to shallowness begins. This also creates an addictive mechanism: instantly opening a new topic gives you the cheap pleasure of "I understand now," but the more information you see, the more you see the heights of others' thinking, yet you can't engage in deep thinking. To resist this anxiety, you continue opening more windows, witnessing more peaks, and then feeling more anxiety. Drinking poison to quench thirst, until you're paralyzed. "Hey, I read a really good book!" "Really? What's it about? Tell me!" "Well... it's great! Awesome!... I can't explain it. Here's a link; read it yourself." Does that sound familiar? So most people start learning to solve problems, but end up escaping them. The more they learn, the more anxious they become. ▼ What is a reliable way to learn? Observe how the experts who feed you knowledge do it. They're quite clever—they focus on a small field, use hot topics as keywords, search for content in their own professional domain, and then express it through new knowledge structures. On one hand, they lower the threshold of knowledge infinitely, but in reality, they increase the distance between you and them. In the era of knowledge wealth creation and content entrepreneurship—no matter how you describe the trendsetters in this field, they rely on three abilities: focus in a specific professional field; search ability combined with hot topics, pain points, and classics; and the ability to restructure and link. They know that even if you bring back a million grains of knowledge sand, it's just a desert. What people love to see is a pyramid built from sand—organized knowledge is the core competitiveness. Only knowledge with height has knowledge pressure. While you wander in the desert, they build their own pyramids. ▼ What should you do? Here are three ways to resist fragmentation and make knowledge "deposit in small amounts, withdraw in full": 1. The starting point of learning is not anxiety, but problems. When Bruce Lee returned to Hong Kong, he appeared on the show "Enjoy Yourself Tonight." The program invited a Tai Chi master to test if Lee could push him. The master posed, waiting for Lee to push, but Lee punched him in the face. (Some people might skip to the bottom and say, "You don't know Tai Chi at all!"—this is exactly the problem of fragmentation, not reading the context.) Bruce Lee's point was that in real combat, no one waits for you to take a stance or attacks only where you expect. Learning is the same—in real life, the environment and knowledge change too much. You can't systematically learn a subject like in school, then sit in a classroom and take a test that only covers what you've learned. Most of the time, life gives you a test first, and then you find keywords based on the problem and start learning. So, the starting point of learning is not a book someone posts on social media, a WeChat article they recommend, or a classic textbook in your industry that triggers your anxiety, but a real problem you encounter:
Through continuous thinking and dialogue, until you can clearly articulate a specific problem—at that point, half is solved.
Break the problem into keywords, then start searching for cognitive resources.
Find the resources you need. 2. Expand learning resources—people, events, networks, books. The ability to find learning resources is the ability to search. Most people's first reaction is to go online or buy a book. This can easily lead to trouble because the internet is a bottomless pit; you browse here and there, and before you know it, two days have passed. To digest and use the content of a book takes at least two weeks, assuming you chose the right book. In the age of information explosion, the most important thing is not to increase information, but to filter and delete information. So the best approach is:
Start with experienced people; based on your question, they give you clear advice, direction, and boundaries.
Find industry benchmarks and see how others do it.
Further use the internet to search for summaries and reviews of materials and books, and finally read books systematically. This method could be a whole article; I'll write about it another time. 3. The 721 Rule: Leave enough time for practice, thinking, and discussion. Action learning theory suggests that to master a skill, you need 10% of your time learning knowledge and information, 70% practicing and applying, and 20% communicating and discussing with others. This principle is called the 721 Rule. Fragmented learning is very useful for the 10% information reception, but the remaining 70% for solitary practice and 20% for discussion require setting aside large blocks of time for systematic learning—fragmented learning is always just a supplement to systematic learning. You need to allocate enough uninterrupted time for learning. If you've read this far, let me add: I only write one not-so-easy-to-read in-depth article per week. Partly because I'm lazy, and partly because I don't think daily scrolling helps anyone. Every Wednesday evening, if you can rethink a viewpoint and take some action and critical thinking, the benefit is much greater. (If you have anything to say on this topic, leave a comment below; that's the 20% discussion.) 4. Output forces input. How can you ensure your thinking is systematic? I've read and tried many methods, and in the end, the most effective one is to use output to force input. You can write articles, give lectures, make PPTs, take reading notes, create mind maps... There's only one requirement: your output must have structure. You need to draw the blueprint first, design a load-bearing structure, then lay the rebar, and finally pour the concrete and sand. Once you establish a structure, your knowledge and information will automatically attach to it. Over time, you'll become someone who can link knowledge based on structure. Many people say, "What if I can't write?" Wang Zhuli, who studies new constructivism, has a viewpoint: "Deposit in small amounts, withdraw in full" for knowledge: Step one is called modular writing: use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to piece together a logical text. (Remember to cite sources when quoting others.) Step two is personalized rewriting: based on step one, you can write your own cases, style, and focus according to your personality—most writing and lectures on the internet are of this type. Step three is creative reconstruction: with continuous accumulation from the first two steps, you create entirely new ideas and models. Most people's problem is that they read articles from steps two and three, conclude they're not suited for writing, and give up. In fact, everyone should start writing from step one—writing isn't for dissemination; at least it's for thinking and learning. ▼ I hope you build your own pyramid. About the author: Gu Dian, renowned career planner, founder of New Elite Career and Orange Academy. Author of the million-copy bestsellers "Break Down the Walls in Your Mind" and "What Possibilities Does Your Life Have?" -END- The best learning platform for FMCG distributors in China Focuses on providing professional, practical, and actionable tutorials for enterprises and distributors Dedicated to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get the corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Featured Articles | 002 Distributor Market Operations | 003 Terminal Visit Management | 004 Sales Supervisor Skills | 005 Sales Boost Techniques | 006 Channel Expansion | 007 Managing Distributors | 008 Distributor Development | 009 Distributor Internal Operations | 010 Team Management | 011 Efficient Distribution Techniques | 012 Sales Manager's Skills | 013 KA Operation Strategies | 014 First Lesson for New Sales | 015 Internet, Brands | 016 Distributor B2B Transformation | [Long press QR code to follow]