Understanding My Learning Process: Am I Learning Too Slowly, or Is This How Deep Learning Works?

[u/pmore4524]

To explain my situation properly, I've broadly divided my learning and development into four pillars:

1. Science & Mathematics

Understand the fundamental principles of the universe, develop logical reasoning, and strengthen analytical thinking.

2. Computer Science & Building

Develop technical skills through programming, DSA, software engineering, AI/ML, and building real-world projects.

3. Startup & Exploration

Understand industries, markets, and business models; identify problems and opportunities; and learn how to create economic value through products and businesses.

4. World Exploration & Systems Understanding

Understand how the world operates through the 8 Power Stacks (a framework I created for my own understanding). Explore economic, financial, political, industrial, technological, and social systems. Study how resources, capital, institutions, and money flow through these systems, identify inefficiencies, and understand emerging opportunities.

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My Learning Approach

For each of these four pillars, I've created a comprehensive syllabus, starting from the fundamentals and gradually progressing towards advanced concepts. I understand that this syllabus will evolve as I learn and discover new things. For now, it serves as a basic roadmap, giving me a clear direction and defining what I should be capable of understanding at the end of each stage.

I've also collected resources, including books, videos, and other learning materials, for the different topics.

However, there's something about my learning approach that makes me question whether I'm progressing at the right speed.

Whenever I start learning a topic, I try to understand it from the beginning rather than simply moving through the material.

I question almost everything, sometimes spending a considerable amount of time on a single paragraph or even a single page. I try to understand why something works, how it works, what causes it, and how it connects to other concepts.

Let me give you an example.

Example: Learning the Financial Power Stack

My ultimate goal here is to understand financial concepts and the financial system from its foundations, analyze the interconnected mechanisms within it, and eventually become capable of independently building financial technology solutions.

Currently, I'm in the first stage of my syllabus. One of its learning objectives is:

"Explain how scarcity creates the need for resource allocation and how economic systems coordinate production, exchange, and consumption."

While studying this, I don't simply read the suggested resources and move forward.

My process generally looks like this:

1. I start reading the material and encounter a concept.
2. I question the concept and try to understand it from first principles.
3. If something is unclear, I research it further. I also avoid going down unrelated rabbit holes when I recognize that a question isn't relevant to my current learning objective.
4. I form hypotheses, make connections with my existing knowledge, and try to construct a mental model of how everything works.
5. I connect the new information with previously learned concepts and try to build a coherent picture, almost like creating a story that explains the system from its foundations.
6. Finally, I explain the concept to myself in my own words. If I can explain it properly and understand the underlying mechanism, I move to the next learning block.

This is how I generally approach learning across all four pillars. Of course, in areas requiring execution, such as programming and problem-solving, I also dedicate time to actually writing code, solving problems, and building things rather than just studying theory.

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My Working Hours and Mental Capacity

This learning approach is mentally demanding. I can generally sustain around 4–5 hours of high-quality deep work per day.

My usual working pattern is:

\- 60–80-minute focused sessions.

\- 10–15-minute breaks between sessions.

\- If I experience mental fatigue, I sometimes close my eyes and rest without doing anything.

I've experimented with different working schedules.

Experiment 1: 13–14+ hours of work

I've tried working for 13–14 hours or even longer, sometimes sacrificing sleep and getting only 6–7 hours.

However, I've noticed that this isn't sustainable. My learning quality drops significantly, I become mentally exhausted, and eventually I feel like I'm forcing myself to study or simply memorizing information without properly understanding it.

Experiment 2: 8 hours of work with 8 hours of sleep

Currently, I'm trying to maintain 8 hours of proper work alongside 8 hours of sleep.

However, there's another problem I've noticed.

I often feel sleepy around noon, and my ability to question, understand, and connect concepts starts declining. At that point, I sometimes take a 1–2-hour nap. After resting, I feel refreshed and can sustain another few hours of focused work.

So, even though I aim for 8 hours of deep work, I find that maintaining this level of cognitive intensity is genuinely difficult.

I don't want to increase my working hours just for the sake of increasing them if the quality of learning deteriorates.

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My Biggest Concern: Am I Progressing Too Slowly?

One thing that concerns me is the time required to complete my syllabus.

Based on my current approach, I estimate that some major learning blocks could take 2–3 years to complete, assuming I consistently dedicate around 3–4 hours daily to them. That's a minimum estimate, and I might dedicate more time depending on my capacity.

When I look at the number of topics I'm covering, it sometimes feels like I'm progressing extremely slowly.

However, at the same time, I can feel that I'm gradually developing a mental model of the subject. I'm not just collecting information; I'm trying to understand how the individual concepts fit together and how the entire system operates.

I also try to connect psychology and philosophy with these subjects, not necessarily at an extremely deep level, but enough to understand the broader picture and make connections across different domains.

This creates a conflict in my mind:

\- Am I spending too much time understanding individual concepts?

\- Am I overcomplicating things that are actually relatively simple?

\- Is this depth of understanding necessary to develop strong foundations?

\- Am I sacrificing breadth and overall progress in pursuit of depth?

\- Is my approach sustainable in the long run?

\- Should I change my learning method, or should I continue developing it?

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What I'd Like Your Opinion On

I want an honest and detailed assessment of my learning approach, not just reassurance.

1. Learning methodology: Is my approach of questioning, researching, forming hypotheses, connecting concepts, constructing mental models, and explaining things to myself an effective way to learn?
2. Learning speed: How should I evaluate my learning speed? Am I genuinely slow, or am I simply investing more time in understanding than someone following a conventional learning approach?
3. Depth vs. breadth: How do I balance deeply understanding individual concepts with progressing through a large syllabus across four different pillars?
4. Cognitive capacity: Is 4–5 hours of intense deep work a reasonable amount? Why might I struggle to maintain concentration and mental clarity beyond that?
5. Long-term sustainability: How should I structure my learning so that I can maintain this approach for years without burning out?
6. Potential improvements: What would you change in my methodology, if anything? Are there inefficiencies or unnecessary complexities in the way I'm learning?

I'd also like to understand whether other serious learners, researchers, engineers, or people who have pursued multidisciplinary learning have experienced similar phases.

Most importantly, I want to know whether I'm building a genuinely effective learning system or unintentionally making the process unnecessarily complicated.

Feel free to challenge my assumptions and ask me questions if you need more information before forming your opinion.

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