Ask HN: How to learn new things better?

I recently did some image editing with GIMP. (I usually use Photoshop, and don't really like GIMP, but decided to use it because it is FLOSS and I'm switching to FLOSS where available.)

It was one of my first times using it, and it was difficult to use. I had to check a couple tutorials on YouTube before I could get into the flow.

Once I got into the flow, it was an amazing feeling. And after I was done editing, I was able to learn other, new things unrelated to GIMP.

This is the most difficult thing for me: getting into the flow. I suspect that GIMP won't be able to get me into the flow once I become better at it.

It's such a mystery: flow. There are reams and reams written about it on the internet. On how to hack it. Do this, do that.

What I want is a simple activity, that once I start doing it, I automatically get into flow (so that I can harness the momentum to learn other things). Anyone have personal experience with such "hack flow" activities?

What it comes down to is spending time getting your hands dirty making things (or getting real practice), even if your output sucks for a long time. (And it will.)

Favorite personal example: One day, when I was around 19, I decided that I wanted to be an artist. I hadn't seriously drawn anything since I was about 10. My current skills were atrocious, but I started drawing every single day, anyway, undeterred.

Of course, at first I was awful. But I copied old master paintings, drew pictures of famous sculptures, etc.; all of my free-time, I spent drawing. And slowly, but surely, I got better at it. I did this every day for probably about 3 years or so, and by the end of it, I was very accomplished. But it was a constant effort that took years. I probably did over 1,000 drawings, hundreds of paintings, and so on. And about 90% of them were awful. But the good stuff, it was really really good. I guess that's the price sometimes. Nobody is a genius all the time. Even Michelangelo, or Picasso.

The thing is, if you find something you enjoy, it doesn't feel like work or drudgery. (Even though drudgery is the only way to get better.) Instead, it's an activity that you want to spend time on, and when you do--time passes so quickly you don't know where it went. It's like living life on fast forward. (Maybe that feeling's the real-life inspiration for the old trope of the training montage. A deep kernel of truth beneath the fantasy, after all?)

They are related but opposed concepts. I see flow as performing whereas learning is growing.

For me, learning feels like the opposite of flow - you are stuck and the mental difficulty is so bad its like physical pain, but with perseverance you break through and get past the obstacle and previously blocked you. Flow is like using a gear on a terrain for which it is suited but when you meet a new terrain and you have no suitable gear, its time to learn you a new one.

That's the whole idea of it, sonny.

> Learning a language is also pretty intimidating

If you're like most people, then the very experience of having learned your very first language, your mother tongue, was probably "quite the struggle, that you never experienced as quite-the-struggle, because you had no preconceived notions as to what constitutes quite-the-struggle".

Doubtlessly everyone keeps at it that finds it somewhat gratifying. Question then, when is it gratifying and when not? I posit it's gratifying not primarily when you garner praise or grades from others but simply when you realize you grasped things about it this week you didn't, or had no idea of, just the previous week.

Just be a kid, poke holes in everything, bend it, try to break it, combine everything with everything, laugh or marvel at what results.

Now languages and drawing are a bit different. What's the point of "learning to draw" when you can't draw the most outrageously "you" way. Don't draw "nicely", that should evolve over time. Draw what comes naturally to you. If only random lines come to you at first, great, that's the first annoyance that'll before long force you to figure out the trick to arriving at slightly-less random figures. Go wild. Languages are slightly different as at the end you want to comprehend and be comprehended. Maybe human languages are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum from wild drawing and highly-restricted formal grammars such as programming languages. If you keep tinkering at these extreme-ends-of-the-spectrum, as always things more-in-the-middle might fall into place a little more easily.

Where am I getting with all of this? Learning (anything) from first-principles by falling-down-and-getting-up and trial-and-error and not-constantly-assessing-your-current-proficiency is the long and hard way, but it's the surefire way and the natural way. And for many, certainly in this crowd I'd wager, the most gratifying one.

> Learning to draw especially is pretty overwhelming for me; I have no idea how to start, as someone with no skill or experience in drawing whatsoever.

Well what would be the point of learning if it wasn't overwhelming, if you already knew where to start and where to go from there, if you already had the skill and experience. I truly do wonder now what your definition of "learning" is ;D

I found whenever I invested much time in just enjoying in a deep, "almost professional-fulltime-fan" way, the works of highly skilled creators you respect and admire in a topic (painters/certain comic drawers, musicians when it comes to learning instruments or composition, or for languages brilliant authors of awesome works as well as perhaps poets/songsmiths) the repeated and active and prolonged immersion in their work can set the stage properly and "pre-seed your brain" in profound hard-to-explain-or-analyze ways. This very period of active admiration irresistably leads parts of the brain on a diversionary trail of "just how did they achieve all this brilliance" that'll keep finding new leads and cues to then prompt you to purposely proceed with in earnest.

Quite wordy, huh? I'm sure there's a 1000 handy "learning anything you want in 21 days" guides out there also. Shame I never felt the need to procure one, my I could be a master painter and most proficient converser in a whole host of languages by now! Wouldn't that be impressive. But this never seemed like fun. Wanna learn for fun and with fun, set small goals and even smaller expectations, and allow as much time as possible. Maybe it's just me but "I'd like to be a great painter (or French speaker) in 21 years" sounds like a much more delightful endeavour than in-21-days (or weeks). Because if that's the outset, chances are as a byproduct you'll already be "really quite decent, better than you expected" after 21 weeks to months but more importantly, by that time you'll no longer even worry about this, as keeping immersedly spending much time with X, Y and Z became just part of who you are as-a-rule.

That's probably the most wordiest way I've ever said "Just Do It and Keep At It". Well I've done my silly deed of the day, time to get back to my own hackery now.