Day 2 of 5, 18 min

Group it, two to four at a time

A pile of keywords is not a map. Grouping turns one into the other, and one simple rule keeps it clean.

1 Start here

After pre-study you have a pile of keywords. A pile is not a map. The move that turns one into the other is grouping, and there is a simple rule that keeps it from turning into a mess.

2 The idea

The two-four rule — Six things under one heading is too many to hold. Aim for two, at most four, then split.

Group by meaning, two to four per group

Group your keywords by what they are actually about, into four or five main groups. And keep two to four things under any one group. The moment a group has six things in it, it is too much to hold, so you split it into two smaller ones. Justin calls this the two-four rule.

Good grouping versus arbitrary grouping — Good groups are intuitive. A friend could guess what is inside from the label alone. Arbitrary groups you just have to memorise.

The test for a good group: could someone guess its members from the label alone? If yes, it is meaningful. If no, you have just made yourself something extra to memorise. hear the two-four rule in the demonstration ls-fundamentals-checkpoint 22:36

3 Watch someone do it

Watch someone do it

A student has twenty loose terms from a unit. Instead of learning them one by one, she asks what each is about and finds they fall into four groups. One group has six terms, too many, so she splits it into two of three, calling one 'causes' and one 'effects'. Now there are five clean groups of three or four, each with a label she could explain to anyone. The list stopped being scary the moment it had a shape.

4 Now you

Group it, keep it to four

Here is a real pile of terms. Pick a colour and tap terms to drop them into a group, keep two to four per group, then hit Check and it will tell you the way a coach would.

Live, group these terms

Pick a colour, tap terms to group them.

5 Get feedback

Ask your own coach

Paste your work into ChatGPT with this. It plays the coach we designed, and pushes on your thinking instead of handing you the answer.

paste into ChatGPT

You are my learning coach, trained on the iCanStudy method by Justin Sung. I grouped these terms into these groups: [paste]. Do not regroup them for me. Tell me whether each group is meaningful or a bit arbitrary, whether any group has more than four items, and ask me one question that would sharpen my grouping. Keep it under 120 words, specific, and encouraging.

6 Checkpoint

You have got it when your groups are ones a friend could guess from the labels, and none of them holds more than four things.

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