The Feynman Technique: How to Learn Anything by Explaining It

Updated 2026-09-29 · By the Notes for iPad team

The Feynman technique is a simple way to test whether you really understand something: try to explain it in plain words, notice where you get stuck, and go back to fill the gaps. Here are the four steps, a worked example and how to fit it into your study routine.

What the Feynman technique is

The method is named after Richard Feynman, the American physicist who shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics and was famous for explaining difficult ideas in clear, everyday language. Feynman didn't publish a "technique" with numbered steps. The version students use today is a popular method inspired by his approach: if you can't explain something simply, you probably don't understand it well enough yet.

It's useful for any subject where understanding matters more than memorizing a list: science, economics, law, programming, history, even a new process at work.

The 4 steps

1. Pick a concept. Write its name at the top of a blank page. Keep it narrow: "how vaccines train the immune system" works better than "immunology".
2. Explain it as if to a beginner. Without looking at your notes, write an explanation for someone with no background, such as a 12-year-old or a friend in a different major. Use short sentences and plain words. Draw a diagram if it helps.
3. Find the gaps and go back to the source. Mark every place where you got stuck, used jargon you couldn't define, or hand-waved ("and then it just happens"). Go back to the textbook, lecture notes or slides and fix only those parts.
4. Simplify and use an analogy. Rewrite the explanation so it's shorter and clearer, and add one comparison to something familiar. Read it aloud. If it still sounds confusing, repeat steps 3 and 4.

Some versions describe these as different steps (for example "teach it to a child" and "review and refine"), but the idea is the same: explain, find gaps, fix, simplify.

Worked example: compound interest

Here is how the four steps might look for a student in a personal finance class.

Step 1, concept: compound interest.

Step 2, first explanation (from memory):

Compound interest is when you earn interest on your interest.
You put money in the bank, it grows by a percentage every year,
and the growth gets bigger over time because of... compounding.
The formula is A = P(1 + r)^t, something like that.

Step 3, gaps found:

• "Because of compounding" explains nothing. It just repeats the word.
• Not sure what each letter in the formula means, or where "n" (compounding periods) fits.
• Can't say how it differs from simple interest with numbers.

After checking the textbook, the student adds a small comparison: $1,000 at 10% a year. With simple interest you earn $100 every year, so after 3 years you have $1,300. With annual compounding you earn $100, then $110, then $121, so after 3 years you have $1,331. The extra $31 is interest earned on earlier interest.

Step 4, simplified explanation with analogy:

Each year the bank pays you a percentage of whatever is in the
account, including the interest it already paid you. So the amount
you earn each year keeps growing.

Analogy: a snowball rolling downhill picks up more snow because
it's already bigger.

Formula: A = P(1 + r/n)^(nt)
P = starting amount, r = yearly rate, n = times per year interest
is added, t = years.

The second version is shorter, uses no unexplained words and includes a number example. That's the goal.

Why it works

• It exposes the illusion of knowing. Rereading notes feels productive because the material looks familiar. Familiar isn't the same as understood. Writing an explanation from memory shows you exactly where your understanding breaks.
• It's retrieval practice. You pull the idea out of memory instead of reading it again, which research on the testing effect suggests is one of the more reliable ways to make learning stick. More on this in our active recall guide.
• It forces you to connect ideas. To explain something simply, you have to relate it to things you already know. Analogies and examples build those connections.
• It targets your study time. You only go back to the source for the parts you couldn't explain, instead of rereading a whole chapter.

How to do it on paper or an iPad

You don't need anything special. A sheet of lined paper works fine. A simple layout helps keep each attempt on one page:

• Top: the concept name and date.
• Main area: your first explanation, written from memory.
• Margin: gaps marked in a second color (a red "?" next to each weak spot).
• Bottom: the final, simplified explanation and your analogy.

On an iPad this is a little easier. You can write the first attempt in one color, circle gaps in another, and import the relevant textbook pages or lecture slides as a PDF on the next page to check them. With the lasso you can move your final explanation to a clean page so you have a collection of short, clear explanations to review later. A dot grid page works well if you like to mix text with small diagrams.

Keep all your Feynman pages for a course in one notebook section. Before the exam, cover each final explanation and try to give it again out loud. If you can, move on. If you can't, that topic goes back on your list.

Combining it with Cornell notes and active recall

The Feynman technique fits neatly into other study methods:

• With Cornell notes. Take lecture notes in the Cornell format. When you write the summary at the bottom of the page, write it Feynman-style: plain words, as if explaining to a classmate who missed the lecture. If you can't write the summary, run the full four steps on that topic. The Cornell notes template has the summary area built in.
• With active recall. Turn each concept into a question ("Why does compound interest grow faster than simple interest?") and answer it from memory during review sessions. The Feynman explanation becomes your answer key.
• With spaced review. Revisit your explanations a day, a few days and a week or two later. Each time, explain first and check second.
• With study groups. Take turns explaining a concept to each other. The listener's job is to ask "why?" until the explainer gets stuck. That's where the gaps are.

Common mistakes

• Looking at the notes while explaining. Then you're copying, not explaining. Close the book first.
• Choosing a topic that's too big. "All of chapter 7" won't fit on a page. Break it into single concepts.
• Hiding behind jargon. If you use a technical term, define it in the same sentence.
• Stopping after one pass. The learning happens in steps 3 and 4, when you fix the gaps.

Summary: Choose one concept, explain it from memory in plain language, mark where you get stuck, go back to the source for just those parts, then rewrite the explanation more simply with an analogy. Keep the final versions and use them for review.

The templates for this, from lined paper to Cornell pages, are built into Notes for iPad. You can also try them in your browser.

Open the free Cornell template →

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