Till the time Pinglr launches, the world of self-learning remains unguided and unclear! So, here are a few steps to learn anything.
What to learn
This may seem obvious, right? But you need concretely define what you want to learn and to what extent. Do the minimum you'd need! Let's say you want to learn how to code... do you need to all languages? Do you need to be a master or know just enough to assess other's work? Break down each skill you want to learn like this, before learning it.
This is important because most topics have a lot to cover— most of it is irrelevant to your personal goal!
A learning journey
Since your goal is to learn and learn fast, you must filter out the unnecessary and focus your attention on the most important topics. How do you do this? Easy.
Make a table with three columns; concepts, facts, and procedures. Concepts are fundamentals or core theories, facts are truthful statements you need to remember and procedures are the actions you need to take to get better at the topic.
Now, research all concepts, facts, and procedures about the topic and fill them into the table after organizing them top-to-bottom by the challenge to learn it, and the level of importance (to your personal goal)
What to learn
This is part where you need to find what content to consume— collect the best resources available on the topics, these may be explainer videos or best-selling books, etc. Roughly you can see where the resources overlap in the topics they teach, emphasize those topics. And exclude learning the parts taught that aren't important to your personal goal.
This is a very good example of the 80/20 rule, spend 20% of the time prepping for learning to have 80% of the impact! You may also want to read this blog on What to learn and how
Practicing and iterating
No skill was ever learned by just understanding theories. Put what you've learned into practice! Do smaller version practices to understand where you stand. In some topics, you could dive completely into the final expected outcome but for most skills like programming you won't be able to build your extremely complicated app just yet— you have to start small.
It's no use in practicing something if you're not going to reflect, once you practice— reflect and iterate on where you went wrong or could be improved! Based on where you stand, you could also take help from others' experiences and knowledge through the means of a mentor or coach
It's that simple.
Conclusion
It all really breaks down knowing what to learn, which parts to learn, how to learn and how to implement!
I love this way of thinking that you don't need to stick to what is normally expected, like finishing an online course, but objectively assessing if each step is necessary for you before moving ahead. It can be applied to everything— not just learning.
