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How to Learn Stuff Quickly

joshwcomeau.com

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: How to Learn Stuff Quickly

#21
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of knowledge you can't write down since you yourself don't know what it is, you just know how to apply it. For example, how do you structure your programs? You can write down some rules of thumb, but you can't write down your entire decision process as a flow chart that can be used on any program to structure every function in them. How to structure big programs is one of the biggest hurdles for new pr…

There is so much software out there in a way it is not too different from biological systems. Programs are like creatures you can study and observe. There is no single book explaining all of software. You must be a bit of scientist yourself. Discover how thing work and what works best.

That is what I'm saying, you can't teach that.

Re: How to Learn Stuff Quickly

#22
I have created a learning framework for myself to learn literally anything. First of all It’s not going to be easy to get started learning something new because there are many holes in your mental model about the material and the aim of the learning is to fill those holes. We’re living in an information era. You can drawn yourself in surfing the web/docs/articles if you are some kind of perfectionism to convince yourself that you’re learning. But that’s the trap. You should spend about 30-40% of your time learning the material and 60-70% of your time applying it and then under the process you’ll find: “Oh I don’t know how or what is X” then you go to learn about X specifically. This works best. In other words as you will be applying what you have learned so far you start “learning on demand”. In other words filling the individual holes. This loop will force you to learn the topic.

Re: How to Learn Stuff Quickly

#23

What a strange article. First, there is no need to put pressure on yourself to learn 'quickly' - that's counter productive. Second, you need to find a good teacher. Finding good teachers is how you learn 'quickly'. Now the way to do that is to have parents who can help you. Really, the way to learn 'quickly', is to be born into a family that's loving and competent at life. Then it just happens - by the time you devel…

[deleted]

Re: How to Learn Stuff Quickly

#25
Nice article! Also consider reading a book after you've got some practice. Things will make much more sense than if you do it without prior experience and you'll get much more in depth understanding of the subject.

Re: How to Learn Stuff Quickly

#26

I have created a learning framework for myself to learn literally anything. First of all It’s not going to be easy to get started learning something new because there are many holes in your mental model about the material and the aim of the learning is to fill those holes. We’re living in an information era. You can drawn yourself in surfing the web/docs/articles if you are some kind of perfectionism to convince your…

> First of all It’s not going to be easy to get started learning something new because there are many holes in your mental model about the material and the aim of the learning is to fill those holes.

It's worse than that, which you allude to later in your comment. The problem is not holes in your knowledge. The problem is, as they say "what you know that just ain't so."

A large part of learning is about unlearning invalid, oversimplified mental models. And you won't find those problems without trying things out and realising the outcome diverges from your expectation.

Re: How to Learn Stuff Quickly

#28
post #27

How to Learn Stuff Quickly ? Easy ! Start before 50 years old.

Actually it's 25. Around that time your neuroplasticity changes and it becomes a lot harder to learn new things. You still can, but it takes much more effort and deliberate protocols to follow.

Prof. Andrew Huberman from Stanford University School of Medicine has some great podcast episodes on this (among other interesting things) [0].

[0] https://hubermanlab.com/

Re: How to Learn Stuff Quickly

#29

What a strange article. First, there is no need to put pressure on yourself to learn 'quickly' - that's counter productive. Second, you need to find a good teacher. Finding good teachers is how you learn 'quickly'. Now the way to do that is to have parents who can help you. Really, the way to learn 'quickly', is to be born into a family that's loving and competent at life. Then it just happens - by the time you devel…

Whatever parents and teachers you might have in the end you either learn to learn for yourself or don't and you either keep on learning or don't. It isn't very hard or a special thing where you need to have everything go just the right way, this is a very basic thing for our species and anyone can do it.

Re: How to Learn Stuff Quickly

#30

What a strange article. First, there is no need to put pressure on yourself to learn 'quickly' - that's counter productive. Second, you need to find a good teacher. Finding good teachers is how you learn 'quickly'. Now the way to do that is to have parents who can help you. Really, the way to learn 'quickly', is to be born into a family that's loving and competent at life. Then it just happens - by the time you devel…

The internet raised me and I've learned everything from it.

I agree with you on the first point. If you wish to actually learn, you take your time. As for everything else... maybe you should keep out of the """psychology""" section of the library for a while.

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