You have a stack of books to read, courses to finish, and skills to build—but no matter how hard you push, it feels like you’re falling further behind. Sound familiar? Learning faster isn’t some gift that everyone is born with; it’s the product of better strategies and smarter tools. With the right approach, you can dramatically cut the time it takes to go from knowing nothing about a subject to genuinely mastering it.
This guide walks through the best tools to learn at a quicker (and more meaningful) pace, starting with Shortform as my top recommendation. Then, I share expert advice on how to learn faster using these tools in ways that anyone can follow.
Table of Contents
The Best Products and Tools to Learn Faster
Learning fast—without sacrificing retention or depth—is one of the highest-leverage skills you can develop. These five tools are designed to help you do exactly that.
1. Shortform
- Price: Five-day free trial • $24.00/month for the monthly plan • $16.42/month for the annual plan
- Features: Book summaries • Deep analysis • Critical commentary
- Available on: Desktop • iOS • Android
- Best for: Professionals, lifelong learners, and students who want to read widely and deeply without spending hundreds of hours doing it
Shortform has completely changed how I approach my reading list. Before I found it, I had a backlog of dozens of books I knew I should read but never had time for. Now, I work through Shortform book guides in my off-time and always walk away with more insight than I used to get from reading the full book, and in a fraction of the time.
For each book, the Shortform team writes a synopsis of the material, adds missing context, challenges weak ideas, and connects concepts to related research. Book guides include exercises and questions that help you to apply what you’re learning. Prefer listening? Every title comes in audio, so you can power through your reading list at 1.25x to 3.5x speed.
2. Anki
- Price: Free (desktop) • $24.99 one-time fee (iOS)
- Features: Flashcards • Spaced repetition • Community decks
- Available on: Desktop • iOS • Android
- Best for: Anyone learning a language, studying for an exam, or trying to retain facts and concepts from their reading over the long term
Anki is a flashcard app built around spaced repetition—an algorithm that schedules each card for review at precisely the moment you’re about to forget it. This is one of the best methods for accelerating the rate at which information moves into long-term memory. Instead of re-reading material over and over, you reach mastery faster by reviewing only what you need, when you need it. You can create your own cards or download community-made decks on almost any topic. After a Shortform reading session, turning key ideas into Anki cards is one of the most effective ways to ensure they stick for years.
3. Audible
- Price: 30-day free trial • From $8.99/month for Standard plan• From $14.95/month for Premium Plus plan
- Features: Audiobooks • Dead-time learning • Variable playback speed
- Available on: iOS • Android • Fire tablets
- Best for: Commuters, frequent travelers, fitness enthusiasts, and anyone with a lot of “dead time” they’d like to convert into learning
My afternoon run used to be just an afternoon run. Now it’s also when I get through two or three chapters of whatever I’m currently listening to on Audible. The platform turns your commute, gym session, or dog walk into learning time, with a library of over one million titles. At 1.25-1.5x speed, most nonfiction or fiction books can be finished in four to six hours. It works especially well with Shortform: Read the summary first to prime your brain, and then listen to the full audiobook while doing something physical.
4. Obsidian
- Price: Free (personal plan) • Add-on services from $5/month and $48/year
- Features: Note-taking • Knowledge management • Bi-directional linking
- Available on: Desktop • iOS • Android
- Best for: Writers, researchers, consultants, and anyone who reads broadly and wants their knowledge to build and compound over time
Have you ever had a bunch of notes scattered across notebooks and apps? Do you have random documents you can never find when you need them? With Obsidian, everything lives in one place, and the bi-directional linking (a two-way connection between notes) has surfaced connections between ideas you probably would never have noticed on your own.
Obsidian is a note-taking app built around the idea of a “second brain.” Unlike traditional note apps, it lets you create links between notes, so ideas from one area surface automatically when you’re working in a related area. Rather than starting from scratch every time you tackle a new subject, you build on what you already know, compressing your learning curve over time. Your vault will quickly become a map of everything you’ve learned.
5. Brain.fm
- Price: 14-day free trial • $14.99/month • $99.99/year
- Features: Focus music • AI-generated audio • Neuroscience-backed design
- Available on: Desktop • iOS • Android
- Best for: Anyone who struggles to focus in noisy environments or finds their attention drifting during reading and study sessions
Brain.fm is a music app engineered to promote deep focus. Unlike lo-fi playlists, its audio is designed at a neurological level to reduce distractions using specific rhythmic patterns. Fewer distractions mean less time lost to refocusing, which directly translates into faster progress through whatever you’re learning. Many users report noticeably better focus during study sessions, making it a simple, low-cost upgrade to any learning environment. As someone who works from home, I find this app the perfect way to end my personal battle with distractions!
2 Ways to Learn Faster
Having the best products and tools is just the first step in your learning journey. Here, I’ve offered two techniques from experts knowledgeable about learning. Throughout this section, I’ve outlined how you can use the products above to accelerate your learning journey.
1. The Feynman Technique
Physicist Richard Feynman, known for his eccentric approach to learning, inspired a method for developing deeper knowledge called the Feynman Technique. It’s a valuable tool when you want to understand an idea intuitively in little time. The result is that gaps in your knowledge surface quickly, so you can fill them in and move forward, rather than discovering them much later when they slow you down.
In Scott Young’s book Ultralearning, he highlights three steps of the technique:
Step #1: Grab a piece of paper and document the issue or idea you’re seeking to understand.
Step #2: Underneath the idea, write an explanation of the idea as if you’re teaching another person.
- If you’re exploring a problem, give a detailed description of how to solve it, and explain why it’s the best approach.
- If you’re exploring an idea, describe it with the assumption that your reader does not know the idea.
Step #3: As you’re doing Step #2, stop whenever you don’t feel able to clearly explain, and review your learning resources to get clarity. Then continue with your explanation.
This method helps you overcome the illusion of explanatory depth (which makes you think you know something better than you do) by making you describe what you’re learning in detail.
It’s worth acknowledging that the Feynman Technique was never really designed as a shortcut. Feynman himself was notorious for refusing to move on from a concept until he had genuinely wrestled it to the ground—sometimes spending days on a single idea. The technique’s real promise isn’t that it makes learning faster in the moment, but that it makes it stickier, so you’re not constantly circling back to relearn the same thing. In that sense, it can absolutely serve a “learn fast” goal—but through depth rather than in spite of it. If you find yourself rushing through the explanation step to save time, you’re likely undermining the whole point.
When to Use It
There are three significant scenarios in which this method can benefit you.
Scenario #1: Lack of understanding—When you don’t understand something at all, apply the method while going back and forth between it and your learning materials. If the concept is from a book in the Shortform library, read our analysis. It often adds the context, counterarguments, or alternative framing that makes a stubborn idea finally land.
Scenario #2: Problem-solving difficulties—When you come across a problem that feels unsolvable, or you’re struggling to master a skill or method, use the Feynman Technique to create a standard explanation summary. But, as you do, break the problem down step-by-step in Obsidian in even greater detail. This keeps you from writing only in summary form, which can cause you to lose key details. You invest a little more time upfront, but you solidify your understanding in one session, eliminating the costly back-and-forth of revisiting the same confusion repeatedly.
Scenario #3: Intuition development—Develop your deeper understanding of an idea by exploring it in a wide variety of ways. Create abstract, visual representations on an Anki card, and put the concept in words on the other side, with the intention of building examples that someone with less knowledge will easily grasp. By encoding ideas this way, you dramatically speed up recall the next time you need to apply them.
2. Steven Kotler’s 25-Minute Method
In The Art of Impossible, Steven Kotler claims that regularly learning new things encourages your brain to form connections between different ideas. But did you know that learning is cumulative? The more knowledge you acquire, the faster you’re able to process new information. (Remember that Obsidian works on this principle by helping you build on what you already know.)
Investor Warren Buffett would probably agree with the idea that, the more you learn today, the faster you learn tomorrow. He said that knowledge “builds up, like compound interest.” Learning is like a savings account that you keep investing in. The more time you spend learning, the more deposits of knowledge you make, and the faster the account grows.
Here’s how this works, concretely:
- If you learn introductory material on a new subject, you can dive deeper and learn expert knowledge that’s more valuable.
- If you learn how to become superhumanly productive, you can save yourself hours each day, which you can then reinvest back into learning.
- If you learn how to create stronger relationships (either romantically, with friends, or colleagues), you end up happier and spend less time worrying about your social life, and more time you can reinvest into learning.
- If you learn how to make more money, you can buy yourself the lifestyle you’ve always wanted. This gives you more free time, which you can reinvest in learning.
Every new skill you acquire creates the conditions for learning the next one even faster. So how do you actually build this momentum? That’s where Kotler’s method comes in.
Expanding your knowledge improves your problem-solving skills and your ability to come up with creative ideas. Further, the process of learning boosts levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in your system, making it easier to practice full engagement and build momentum toward your goal. These neurochemical boosts also accelerate the rate at which new information is encoded, meaning the act of learning itself becomes faster the more consistently you do it.
Kotler recommends you spend 25 minutes a day expanding your knowledge of new concepts or improving your skills. This could include reading about new topics, improving your areas of weakness, or practicing new skills. Short, consistent sessions beat long, infrequent ones for the speed of skill development.
If you’re not sure how to use your 25 minutes to assimilate knowledge and skills effectively, consider adopting the following two processes.
Process #1
According to Jim Kwik (Limitless), you’re more likely to retain new information if you take effective notes. He provides a three-step process for learning something new, and I’ve added some tools you can use for a couple of the steps:
- Before you start a learning session (for example, reading or watching a presentation), ask yourself what you’re specifically hoping to learn from it.
- Keeping your goal for the session in mind, filter through the information you’re getting, and write down only what’s relevant to that goal in Obsidian. This filtering step alone can cut your review time significantly by stripping out noise from the start.
- Once your session is complete, highlight the most valuable information and make an outline of the key points, or convert the most important points into Anki cards.
Process #2
If your goal is to learn a new skill quickly, Angela Duckworth (Grit) has the perfect advice for you. She argues that you’re more likely to stretch your skill set if you break each skill down into different components and focus on mastering one component at a time. She provides a four-step process to learn a new skill:
- Focus on a specific component of the skill you want to learn. Targeted input accelerates targeted improvement. For example, if your goal is to learn how to play guitar, focus on mastering a single chord.
- See whether there are Shortform guides about your skill (e.g., negotiation, story writing, stock market investing, effective communication, potty training, management). Survey what the guides say about that specific component of your skill, and give it your undivided attention.
- Once you think you’ve mastered that component, ask others to evaluate your progress. Pay more attention to what you did wrong than what you did right.
- Reflect on the feedback you received and continue to give that single component your undivided attention until you master it.
- Repeat the process until you’ve mastered all of the different components of your chosen skill.
By tackling one component at a time rather than the whole skill at once, you’ll find that each piece clicks into place faster. You’ll efficiently become proficient.
Speed Up Your Learning Today
With the right tools and methods, you’ll be the master of learning faster. Whether you’re teaching concepts back to yourself with the Feynman Technique or carving out 25 minutes a day to learn something new, the common thread is intentionality. Pair these strategies with tools such as Shortform, Anki, and Obsidian, and you’re not just learning at a speedier pace—you’re building a system that compounds over time.
Do you want more advice on learning a new skill and quickly retaining information? Check out these Shortform guides:
