Ask HN: What's your process for learning?

I have different processes and strategies depending on what I am learning and how familiar I am with a topic. For example, if I would like to explore a brand new topic that I have no clue about then this is how my thought process looks like:

1) Look for verticals/lists of resources. These exist in all fields, awesome-lists are just an engineering example, universities keep lists of open courses, list of book recommendations or lists of open-sourced books.

2) Look for key figures in that field. PhD Researchers, Conference Presenters, TEDx Talkers, Professors, Founders of Companies in that field. Follow their pages/blogs/twitter accounts and ask them what resources do they recommend for beginners. Compile your own vertical of resources based on cross matching the resources here with the ones you found in other verticals.

3) Look for courses, new ones are usually offered on MOOC Platforms, archived ones can be found on university websites. Check the reviews of such courses and pick the most beginner friendly one. Depending on the field, if it's not technical then you will have to look for courses elsewhere, for example: The Great Courses.

By now you should know, roughly, the best resources (Books, Articles and Courses) and how to find more (verticals and people in that field).

4) Learn the terminology. One way to learn the terminology of a field is to pick the book you decided is best to start with using the previous 3 steps, open it and go to the index section, read the index and start googling terms as you come across them, for example: If I am exploring Data Engineering and I come across the word or term "stream processing" then I will start googling that term. Familiarise yourself with as much terms as possible.

5) Commit to reading at least 1 book, going through 1 course and trying to apply as much of what you learned as possible. Technical subjects are the easiest to apply this step to, since you can start a side-project at anytime.

P.S. you can always ask for guidance in this, you don't have to repeat all the steps for all fields, for example, you can submit an "Ask HN" post asking for resources about X topic or a question on a related Subreddit such as: /r/PostgreSQL.

Best of luck!

EDIT: typo

i use a text (word file) template i made - if you want to see, visit

blondyn.com

> How would you go about learning-by-doing something like particle physics or advanced chemistry without access to labs?

You can't! That's what makes computer programming so special - no lab needed. Anyone wishing to learn physics or chemistry better have access to a lab sooner or later. That's just the reality of it.

I use the app I made studysauce.herokuapp.com for memorization. Google calendar for tracking progress and lots of personal analytics. I spend about a day on little set up projects such as connecting to Watson, or adding up calendar events using Google API, or learning the basic of some new framework. I'll do one of these little projects 1 to 4 times per month. Reading other people's research is a good starting point for me. I wish API's weren't so expensive. That is cost prohibitive of my turning a little app I write in a weekend in to a product. No one wants to pay 30 dollars on top of my 20 dollar monthly expense. If my use case ends up costing more than about $5 per month, I try it out and then shut it down. Usually there is no output from my adventures except self-improvement, which is pretty disappointing, I'll admit.

I'd like a desktop app that, when engaged, would monitor browser usage and lightbox my screen after 3 minute of browser use with a simple question "Are you solving a problem or taking a break?". If I choose "taking a break", I'd like a 1 minute countdown timer engaged with a suggestion to focus on breathing instead.

Please? Pretty please? :)