A top-down approach to learning can be succinctly summarized by the following quotes:
“Don’t miss the forest for the trees.”
“You can’t see the picture when you’re inside the frame”
“Don’t get lost in the weeds.”
Instead of getting bogged down in details, it emphasizes looking at a helicopter-view of the topic, learning how each of the subtopics/components interact before learning about each of them individually. Each subtopic/component is treated as a ‘black box’ with its details abstracted away.
As Khalid Azad, says, it’s like going from “blurry-to-sharp”.
The traditional bottom-up approach vs a top-down approach
Where can I use this?
The universality of this approach makes it an extremely powerful tool in your arsenal. Here are some of the ways I’ve used it:
Building applications/Designing systems
Before coding a CLI application, think about how someone will use it and work backwards towards the implementation. What features will it have? What will be the commands that will implement them? What flags will be coupled with each command?
This initial planning saves you tons of rewrites and headaches later on and ensures the design guides the implementation, not the other way around.
Planning for a PDF processing CLI tool
Writing
- Build an outline of the main points before elaborating on its details. I wrote this article using this approach :)
Studying for exams
- Get the syllabus and draw a mind map. Any time you learn any new concept, you can hang it on the correct “branch” of your mind map
- I personally like to build mind maps for each unit rather than the whole subject as those can get quite wieldy.
- (insert own mindmap here)
Reading a blog/book
- Scan the Table of Contents before reading the chapters
- Scan the headings and subheadings before reading the text
Advantages
- Gives structure to the learning process by building a ’tree of knowledge’. When you get too deep into a subtopic/component, take a moment to pause and see how that particular jigsaw piece fits in the puzzle.
- Avoids brain overload and feeling overwhelmed. Your brain is not built to DFS for long periods.
- More efficient in the long run. A little planning can save expensive “rewrites” later.
Disadvantages
- Too much planning can become a veiled method of procrastinating learning the difficult details. (I do this more often than I’d like to admit). Like with all things in life, balance will serve you well here.