How's your process for learning new things?

Hey there!

Regardless of where you're from, you're doing a career change or you want to pick up a certain programming language and use it confidently, we all have one thing in common. We have to learn how to do the thing.

Shocking, I know. I haven't said anything new yet.

BUT, the reason I say this is because most (if not all) of us, have the tendency to go out and absorb as much info as possible and not pay too much attention to how we're doing it.

And then some of the following things happen:

• We get overwhelmed by the huge amount of info out there.
• We forget about 90% of all that we read a few days after.
• We tend to procrastinate with several other unrelated things
• We blame it on us saying "I'm just not good at this programming thing" or something along those lines.
• [insert your own particular experience here]

That's why before we rush into things, let's take a step back and check how prepared we are before going out and jumping into the unknown (unknown language/project/tech stack/etc).

It's like what someone said.

If you're anything like me, you're probably using the same learning method you used back in college (or high-school) and that's how you've been doing it so far.

For me personally, my way of learning things back in that time was rote memorization and reading a bunch of stuff (not precisely before an exam, more like the entire semester).

Needless to say, my grades weren't anything to be proud of and the things I've picked up weren't going to get me pretty far.

Anyway, I hope you're methods have been much more productive to pick up new stuff and that's what you're currently using to learn that new language or that particular tech stack.

If that's not the case, and you think you could do a little (or a lot) better at this "learn programming thing". I want to share some ideas with you.

Some of the ones that have changed the game for me when it comes to picking up new skills and going from total 'newb' to competent person.

You're probably not going to get any awards for 'top developer of the year' but I think you're aiming more towards knowing how to use 'X' language to do 'Y' thing with it.

So yeah, I'll share those lessons I've learned (sometimes the hard way) with you so that when it comes the time to employ those coding skills for any particular task like building a project, contributing to the code of others, or even do well at an interview, you can do it with greater confidence and effectiveness.

Still, I'm curious though. That's why the title of this post. How's that process of yours so far? What are some things that have worked for you and what others haven't?

If you want, go ahead and write them in the comments. I'd like to read what has been working, or not working, for you. (And maybe I can learn something new as well 😄)

That's it for this post. I'll share those ideas in another post soon. And I'd be able to do it better if I have some of your feedback on this one.

That being said...