How to Learn New Things as an Adult

It's not that we are getting dumber. We are just changing our skill set. Remembering where to find a set of information or how to find a set of information is more effective​ than remebering each item in the set. Search engines have changed us so we don't have to remember trivia and can focus on larger ideas that can't be searched.

> Boser explains why some of the most common ways we try to memorize information are actually totally ineffective, and he reveals what to do instead.

I couldn't get past the first paragraph. I don't think memorisation and learning should be conflated as it appears to be in this article. Perhaps it's the fault of the title -- clickbait?

I find it much easier to learn things as an adult than I did as a teenager. I have more discipline, confidence, and experience in learning.

The trick to learning new things as an adult is to never stop learning. For many people university (or highschool, for the slightly less fortunate) is the last time they will actively learn, after that they are 'done learning'.

But you're never done learning! In a world that changes as fast as ours does you'll be learning until you die if you want to keep up and stay relevant in the near future. Even more so in the IT domain.

So don't stop learning, or you'll be playing catch-up with very little chance of success once you do stop.

Brain plasticity and learning "power" aside, I believe the biggest difference between learning something as a child and as an adult is simple how conscious we are that we're trying to learn something and how much we self-reflect and analyse our own abilities and progress.

As a child we typically do things just because we enjoy them, and often don't have an idea of a goal or target, other than simply doing the thing because we find it intrinsically fun. As an adult however we become highly analytic, self-reflective and critical of both ourselves and others, and we start to do things with a consciousness and awareness of others.

Additionally, by the time you reach adulthood there's a high chance that there's a thing that you've done enough to be in a fairly experienced position with, so anything new undertaken as an adult will now be judged in terms of the things you can already do, which means it will feel difficult and you'll believe that you suck at it. Which you do, because you're a beginner, and that's normal and is precisely what it means to be taking up something new!

While trying to play the piano as a child I had no thoughts of achieving a goal or getting to a specific level, and I certainly didn't compare myself to others. I just did it because it was fun. By the time I was more conscious of enjoying it and knew that I wanted to learn more seriously I'd already acquired a basic level of keyboard fluency.

So, having bought a guitar a few weeks ago and finding that all of a sudden trying to acquire a new physical skill is actually difficult (particularly important to remember as a developer where often what we're learning is a variation on an existing technique), I keep having to remind myself that it only feels difficult because it's new, and it would feel just as difficult if I were starting from a younger age, except I just wouldn't be so darn self-conscious about it.