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Ask HN: Do you get impatient when learning new things?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you get impatient when learning new things?

#81

Post by Davetron »

bmay wrote: post #77
Davetron wrote: post #20

I did a great course earlier this year on Coursera called "Learning How To Learn" It's pretty short but covers some good strategies for learning that are backed up by current Neurobiology research. https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

Could you share some of those strategies?

Sure. There are loads of things to cover but I'll outline the ones I found most useful. Some of them are common sense but sometimes that ain't so common ;)

Avoid procrastination 1 - Set aside time to study a little and often rather than trying to do huge sessions. Cramming doesn't work, your brain doesn't like it. 2 - Turn off your phone, shut down those facebook/email/reddit/imgur tabs so they're not tempting you. 3 - Don't get disheartened by thinking about the whole topic at once. How do you eat an elephant? One little bite at a time. 4 - Just get started, even for a few mins. You'll get into the flow after just a few mins.

Take your breaks 1 - Recall is greatly improved by taking a short breaks to let your brain digest the material you're learning. 2 - Try the pomodoro technique. Focussed work with zero distractions for 25 mins, then a 5 min break, repeat. For coding I prefer a longer work period to load the problem into my noggin but YMMV.

As part of the course we had to do up a few small blog entries explaining the material. Another good point: re-explaining the subject cements your understanding of it. Feel free to take a look at mine, I go into a bit more detail on the above items http://learnsmarternotharder.blogspot.ie/2015/01/so-much-to-...

Re: Ask HN: Do you get impatient when learning new things?

#82

Post by logicallee »

muraiki wrote: post #60
logicallee wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read through that book, I've never tried learning Rust so that's why I googled Rust tutorial so I would have an unbiased opinion on the first thing I found. You've just LITERALLY made my point for me by quoting instructions that sound like they expect to spend 20 hours on this thing right now , including referencing two other tutorials. Imagine if the first time you used a hammer it came with a reference to…

You can use a saw to cut a stick in half, but you can also use it to create joinery. Learning something as complex as joinery -- and doing it well -- is necessarily going to take some time... even though you could probably teach an ape to use a saw. Different learning resources have different goals. This is a book that is meant to be comprehensive, but also provides two different ways to approach learning the languag…

except it's more like, "we have joinery equipment that is smart enough to safely drive a car in the place of a human driver - but we still won't let you just ask it to cut a stick in half. Learn a new trade, become a joiner if you want to cut wood!"

Because my gripe isn't that joinery exists as a trade - it's that equipment that is so smart still won't do simple things for the user - on principle. People actively design their tools so they won't do something simple. Yes, really.

Re: Ask HN: Do you get impatient when learning new things?

#84

Post by noobie »

Davetron wrote: post #20

I did a great course earlier this year on Coursera called "Learning How To Learn" It's pretty short but covers some good strategies for learning that are backed up by current Neurobiology research. https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS SUGGESTION!
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