LAMBDA: Setting up a digital learning environment

We need space to learn. Space, where we can muddle through content and notes, where we can take abstract notes and refine them into clean notes, and where we can keep track of our questions and curiosities.

We need space that is forgiving and which allows us to take time and think.

history — pen and paper

During university, my learning environment consisted of pen and paper. I would start by having a collection of diverse materials like lecture notes, books and online articles. I would skim them and create a rough scope of what I needed to learn.

Once the scope was done, I would go through the materials and take abstract messy notes — notes about everything that seemed interesting and important. Once I had a stash of abstract notes, I would start to distill them into clean-shaped notes by categorizing, organizing, reorganizing and connecting insights.

Once I had my distilled notes, I would write them down on big sheets of paper. This way I would create blocks of notes — grouped and categorized.

now — going digital

Only recently I moved from pen and paper to digital tools. I had to play around with a lot of concepts, ideas, and templates. But none of the fancy digital learning systems was working for me. They had cool and fancy features but they just made the whole learning process too complicated and complex.

I, for example, couldn’t take abstract messy notes and think concepts through because the templates seemed so perfect that I tried to take perfect notes immediately.

Nothing seemed to work for me. So I took a step back and thought about what I was doing wrong. I had a perfectly working and simple learning environment before while using pen and paper.

So instead of trying new fancy learning environments, I tried to transform my simple pen-and-paper environment into a digital learning environment. And the result is the so-called LAMBDA environment.

the LAMBDA environment

This learning environment is designed to allow you to muddle through ideas, think and try to understand concepts, and tinker with notes until you are ready to distill them.

You can set it up wherever you like. I am currently using it in Notion and I’m trying to also implement it in Obsidian but you can probably also set it up in your favorite note-taking app.

The LAMBDA environment consists of 6 building blocks: Learning, Ambition, Materials, Board, Distilled Notes, and Area.

Learning

Learning in LAMBDA represents a learning module or a learning unit. One learning module is ideally about one specific topic you want to learn — like learning the basics of design typography. It can also be an online course, a part of an online course, or a learning module you shaped yourself following the Shaping Process.

In Notion, I always create a new page for a new Learning. And in Obisidian, I always create a new note for a new Learning.

Ambition

Each Learning should have an ambition — the reason you want to learn it. For example, for the Basics of Design Typography learning, clearly define why you want to learn it. What is your intention? What is your goal? Why do you want to learn it? How do you want to use and apply what you are learning?

This is always the first section inside my new Learning page or note.

Materials

After we have defined the topic of our Learning and stated the reason why we want to learn it, it is time to collect some materials. Research materials and save them inside the Learning.

Materials are simply a collection of courses, tutorials, books, and articles that you researched to learn this specific skill.

Board

The first three building blocks of LAMBDA are to plan and organize your learning. Now we get to the part that is concerned with the actual learning — the board.

The board section is your digital whiteboard. The place where you take messy notes, create a rough scope and try to organize your notes and thoughts until you reach a point of understanding.

In the beginning, your scope will only be a wild guess with a bit of imagination but it will help you get a grasp of what will come. It will be a big-picture overview. And in the end, you will reorganize it multiple times until it fits your understanding and thinking.

The board will also be the place for your abstract messy notes. Notes you take while skimming materials or while consuming content. These notes can even be question-notes or questions-answer-notes (instead of writing down facts, you write down questions and try to recall the answer).

On this board, you can organize and reorganize your messy notes, you can summarize them, create chunks and connections, or build categories for familiar ideas. Step by step you will resolve the mess and confusion.

At this point, your notes are ready to move into the next building block of LAMBDA.

Distilled notes

This is the section where you have clean notes and a clear understanding of a concept. You can still reorganize or rephrase your distilled notes at any point. Depending on your learning goal, your distilled notes can take on different styles.

Your distilled notes can be a simple list of notes if you want to have an easy-to-access summary.

Your distilled notes can be a list of question-answer notes if you want to make use of recalling information.

Your distilled notes can be structured in layers with a main topic, splitting into sub-topics and categories, and further into simple notes or question-notes.

All of these styles have different purposes. The simple list is mainly focused on having an easy-to-access summary. The list of question-notes has its primary focus on using active recall to memorize. And, the layering, categorizing, and chunking of notes focus on helping you understand concepts through connections.

If you want to apply what you are trying to learn, you can also use the distilled notes section to keep track of project notes or tasks.

(I like to place the distilled notes above my messy notes inside the board section.)

Area

And the final part of LAMBDA is the area. Each Learning — with its ambition, materials, board and distilled notes — should be part or assigned to an area. For example, a Basics of Design Typography Learning could be part of a Design area or even a Product Engineer area that you want to focus on and learn more about.

Instead of learning random things here and there, create areas for your life, areas on which you want to focus. And try to learn skills or information related to these areas. These areas resemble curiosity constraints so that you don’t get distracted by all the interesting skills you could learn.

Depending on what you are currently learning and what you are planning to learn, your Learnings can be in different states:

• Idle: Learnings that you plan or that are planned
• To Focus: Learnings that you are learning right now
• Done: Learnings you learned

You can also use the Areas to dump in new Learning ideas, online courses, or tutorials. You can place them below the IDLE state and come back to it once you finished a current Learning.

Additionally, each Learning and each Area should have a WHY — the reason you want to learn this specific skill — one or a couple of sentences to improve your awareness and alertness.

summing up…

And this is it. This is the LAMBDA learning environment and it is designed to help you muddle through, think, understand, and tinker with notes and concepts. You can set it up wherever you like. Here is a link to a Notion template for inspiration.

LAMBDA is part of the Lean Learning Method I’m working on. If you want to learn more about it, check out my Notion page at Lean Learning Method.