How we can learn a technical skill efficiently and quickly?

Imagine you want to develop a program, which is smart enough to predict bitcoin prices and can invest on your behalf and let you keep the profit. Wouldn't it be great? To develop these kind of programs, one must have technical skills to continue. I too want to develop a program for my self. Similarly you too may have plan, may be you want a job in next four months or you just want to spend your time on something productive. To execute our plans, we both need to learn some technical skills.

So, How we can learn a technical skill efficiently and quickly? You might have asked this question to yourself, at least I have asked my self. Learning is easy and fun when it is done properly. Now a days world is getting advance at a high pace then it used to be in past. Humans are trying to build a colony on mars. Someone is trying to make machines learn as efficiently as humans, and to match ourselves we have to keep our learning pace synchronized with world’s changing pace. You might be thinking, this is bullsh*t. Believe me, this article will be worth reading, if your are struggling with learning.

Problems I faced, when i was learning.

When I was learning, I faced too many problems, Let me mention some of them below.

1. University is teaching outdated content.
2. It’s hard to find good resources and courses.
3. On an average human’s attention span is 8 sec which is less then a goldfish (9 seconds).
4. You get overloaded by too much information.
5. You lose motivation.
6. You need someone to push you.
7. You get confused by too many choices out there.
8. The industry is changing too fast.
9. You don’t have enough time.
10. I just finished a course, now what’s next.

These were some problems which i was able to jot here. There might be 100 others which I am unaware of. So what is the best way to tackle these problems and make our learning effective. As saying goes, experience is the best teacher. so i learned how to tackle these problems and learn faster.

Solution, which i learned from my experience

I have taken more then 100 courses both offline and online. When we take a online course usually our main focus becomes finishing the course. You just learn from lectures and skip those lectures which you can’t understand, and you loose motivation. It has happened to me. When you are part of a boot-camp or any other institution,taking the time out to go there can be hard and challenging and more often will power consuming. So, let’s discuss one by one to grasp the concepts thoroughly.

Selecting Course or Resource

In past, I just used to enroll in courses, what ever they are I used to find free coupons and some pirated courses to learn. This is one thing, which I often regret. Never ever go for free course (unless you are confident that it will not waste your time) or pirated course (you are violating basic principle of ethics). and you actually never learn by doing this.

One more problem is that people don’t know what to buy they get persuaded by some of their friends (Hy, Take this course, this is the best course) or by the hype created by course instructors (Which is normally too short).

Instead when ever I learn something, first thing is I go to YouTube and search for best courses online. After finding the courses, I search road maps. Let’s take a example of data science. I will search for best data science course online and the i will try to find the road map. After that i sync the road map with the course content and then i decide. should i go for this or not.

Focusing on single resource

Sometime we just enroll for single course and try to gulp it’s content over night and call our self as Data Scientist. Don’t do this instead always opt for one more resource of different author. Doing this offers a diverse thought which can help you build your mindset and learn faster.

Learning too much

As i alluded, when we take course our main motive becomes completing course instead of learning through it. Never plan to complete the course in one week or two. Instead think of it as long-term, learn just enough. Don’t overload your self with too much information. Which you can’t implement or don’t have time to implement. Instead learn enough and then practice.

Building Real-World Project.

When I started learning JavaScript, I thought I will only be able to make a real-world project, once I fully grasped the language. I was wrong, because I am still learning JavaScript, but I also have built some project. So, Implement what you know, this is the real thing. The knowledge in your head is not useful, the knowledge which you can implement is useful.

Practice, Practice and Practice actively

Repetition is the mother of all skills. You might have heard to be best at something, you have to do it for 10,000 hours. I guess that’s completely absurd, there are a lots of people doing one thing from years but still are not perfect at that thing. Just because they are repeating it passively. Instead repeat it actively, be aware of what you are doing and where you need improvement, Questioning the way you are doing is the real key to success.

Don’t take repetition here as trying to implement for loop 10000 times and saying, i have just master it. No, A big No! instead repeat the concepts by building totally different projects.

Finding a buddy

Well, let me name a online course community which personally has helped me a lot; Zero to mystery academy. They have such an amazing community, when ever you take their course they encourage you to find a accountability buddy. Basically, the whole concept is that you are accountable for his/her progress and same he/she is yours. This is such an amazing concept. Instead find a person, he can be anyone and set some rules and you both have to encourage yourselves to learn and push more.

Challenging your mindset.

I always wanted to do #100daysofcode but i always thought, no it’s impossible for me to take sometime out to do it daily. Believe me I was wrong. You should try these challenges, doing so will make you push yourself and you will also find some amazing people out there who are willing to help you and contribute in your life. With that to break the status quo, I am here announcing to complete #66daysofData challenge. I have committed in front of you guys this will build some momentum and now I have no option left except to compete. Like me you can do it, just challenge yourself and start what
you think is necessary.

Questioning

Just look at newton, one question made him famous all over the world for a millennium. May be your question can do the same for you. Make use of online communities, like stack overflow and there is an entire list of communities from which you can join yours and ask your questions. Believe me no body is going to judge you.

Conclusion

So, to conclude learning is fun when it is done properly, try to figure out what works best for you, don’t just follow the fame. Instead do some research. All these points were based on my experience so there might be anything which you guys can add and you guys can correct me, if you think I have mention something which shouldn’t be here. Thanks for reading, I wish you Happy Learning and Good luck.