How Best to Use TOLFA

This Academy is not a book, but a self-directed, interactive learning facility. Each of the 18 numbered Segments presents its theme in a rational way:

  • Premise
  • Reasoning
  • Conclusion
- and each is punctuated with some interactive Q&A to help the learning process.

Many of them, as it says on the Study Plan page, rely upon conclusions established in earlier (lower-numbered) segments, and so it's really important to consider each in sequence. Please don't cherry-pick! - by entering a later Segment before having studied all those that precede it. Confusion will result.

Similarly, make very sure you're fully comfortable with each Segment before moving on to the next. If there's anything you don't understand, or don't think has been well established, settle it before leaving that Segment, don't leave it until later. Bring it to your Mentor as below until all is clear. This is very important, because if you find yourself in trouble later on the reason may have little to do with that later Segment and everything to do with the foundation being laid in the present one - but it will be much harder for either of you to see that then.

The first three segments form, in particular, an indispensible foundation for all that follow. Don't go further without spending plenty of time absorbing them, and don't assume that because you've seen some of the contents before, you therefore "know it all." Perhaps you do, but the illusion is much more common than the reality.

There is no rush. This Academy will turn on its head the way government teachers tried to make you look at life and the world around you. It is bound to take a little time to repair that damage. One segment a week is a perfectly reasonable rate of progress, and if you're moving much faster than that you may be moving too fast. Treat each like fine wine, or sippin' whiskey.

What if I need help?

Four steps - please follow them in sequence:
  1. Review the Segment where the puzzle arose, in case you overlooked the answer
  2. Review preceding segments, to make sure it wasn't covered earlier
  3. Check the FAQ Page (via the Study Plan) in case someone else already asked it
  4. If all that fails, email your Mentor

After graduating, you'll soon be a Mentor yourself, and you'll not appreciate being asked questions to which the answer is already within the TOLFA pages. So please do yours a favor and follow those four steps.

If you do have to ask your Mentor, do him or her another favor and start by stating the Segment Number in which the problem arose, and confirm that you've already followed Steps 1 thru 3 without success.

Notebook

Keep one! It will make a useful record of your progress through the Academy. One particular value is that although the main text of the 18 Segments is well enough indexed, the 100+ interactive questions with which it's punctuated are not. So when you meet something in those which strikes you as noteworthy, write it down.

Navigation

It's pretty simple: at the foot of each Segment is a link back to the Study Plan page, so if ever you get lost, just scroll down to its foot and click on "Study Plan."

The Study Plan page has links to every Segment, and via the blue bar at its foot to some other pages like FAQ and News. Do check the News page from time to time, as you work through the Academy, and Download a fresh copy periodically because TOLFA is improved whenever we find a way to do so. And when you introduce a friend to join TOLFA, be sure to check the "Mentors' Corner" page periodically, to pick up the latest ideas for being effective and efficient; also via the blue bar.

Now you're ready to take a deep breath, and plunge in to Segment 1!

Study Plan