Ask HN: How do you go about learning new stuff? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you go about learning new stuff?

2 pointsudayj4 comments

When starting to learn something new, I often look for books, courses, guides or how-to's on the topic - on google, HN, reddit etc. - even directly asking knowledgeable people. What does the community here do in this situation to find learning resources.

View on HN

The procedure I usually follow then tackling a new subject isn't a one-shot approach but an iterative process. The process consists of the following steps:

1. survey key topics that represent either basic aspects of the subject of interest that are required to understand it or have important practical uses

2. organize these key topics as a project by breaking them down into individual tasks based on interdependencies and key productivity goals (i.e., I want to be able to do something and add a skill to my technical tool belt)

3. compile a list of reading material that cover the key topics

4. while reading on each topic, write a monograph of sorts on the subject. The monograph is intended to help you track the progress, evaluate what I know and don't know, synthesize what you do know and refresh your memory (particularly useful if it's a medium/long-term project), and help understand where to guide the learning project to better reach milestones and mitigate potential shortcomings.

Step 1 and 2 are updated based on what I've covered in the monograph. The monograph is updated as I progress, and If I didn't added the monograph then it's as if I didn't covered the topic yet.

The easiest process to learn anything quickly. 1. Choose a specific skill that you find useful and that intrigues you. 2. Break down the skills into basic, practical steps, find the most important steps to practice first. 3. Gather up books, videos, articles and podcasts related to your skill. Find out somebody who is already expert at the skill you want to learn and get help from him. 4. Deliberate practice will always result in improvements. Stop reading. Start doing. The more you practice, the faster you learn. 5. Set a deadline. 6. Don’t multitask at all.Turn off any kind of distractions. 7. Get feedback instantly to know what success looks like quickly.

I try to find a couple of books on the topic. I filter them mostly based on Amazon reviews.

Then start reading. I also look for talks on the topic and watch and repeat them at random.

Finally I have a pretty strict schedule to do that from 6am to 8 am.

This chunk of time is for me.

I've found that nowadays just Googling for appropriate tutorials can be just as good as reading an O'Reilly book. Text tutorials are the fastest, but when you get stuck it can help to watch a YouTube tutorial around where you get stuck. Especially useful for anything which involves having to click on stuff in a UI (for example when learning Interface Builder).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com