How To Learn Anything?

Let us assume that you finally have a plan down on paper of what you wanna do with your career...

If somehow 'Conincidently' you are making Youtube videos and don't know what the fu*k is this career thing, let me guide you... The Career is an individual's metaphorical "journey" through learning, work and other aspects of life. There are several ways to define a career and the term is used in a variety of ways...

Now you finally know what the heck is this career thing, and by now you might have already guessed that to be successful in your career, you need to do some work and to do some work you need some skills and to get those skills..........Well, you'll have to learn them.

Now the question is: "What's the best way of learning something?"

Answer: "Your saviour is here!"

Before you start to learn...

1. Say it out loud "F@CKKKK!!! SCHOOLS, THEY FUC**INGGG!! RUINED THE MOST CRUCIAL PART OF MY LIFE!! I COULD HAVE FUKING LEARNED A TON OF SKILLS, BUT NOOOOOO!!!! I WAS WRITING THE ANSWERS OF..... WHY THE HELL THIS MOTHE*****ER LENCHO WROTE A MOTH****KING LETTER TO THE, no proof of existing, THE GOD PERSON..."

2. That's it, Away we go...

Before You Literally Start Learning Anything...

If you're thinking that you'll be able to learn anything and be professional at it after reading this blog, you're misunderstood. Remember what I said in my blog on How To Make A Game, ALL ON YOUR OWN...

Remember you can learn anything but you can be professional at only one thing...(That's not my quote, by the way, a great person said this quote and now it's said by two great persons😁)

You can't be professional at everything, to be professional at anything you'll need to practice, and for practice, you'll need time and time will give you experience. That's how you can be professional at any skill. I'm not saying you can't be professional at more than one thing, it all depends on how much patience and time you can invest in that skill.

I'm professional at only one thing, Game development. And to be professional at game development I had to learn some other skills too, like Animation, Blender, Texturing, 2d animation, Photoshop, Illustrations, and all the other computer stuff you can imagine... 

So, the question is how did I learn these skills in just 6 months?

Here I present to you -- tips to learn anything

1. Ask people who are already professional at that skill

Think of one skill that you're good at, and think about how you learned that skill. When you'll think about it then you'll remember your failures and how you could have avoided them and the shortcuts you could have taken to learn the same thing faster. 

So, it's your job to find these "Professional" people. Don't hesitate to ask silly questions because you can't do both. Either you can learn by asking your silly doubts or either you can save your esteem. The choice is yours.

The best place to find these people is LinkedIn. There are a ton of professionals on LinkedIn and connect to them and ask them anything. And there's a 95% chance that they will reply to you.

2. Imerese yourself in the learning process

If you're also a fan of Elon Musk, like me, you might be thinking that if Elon Musk can multitask, why shouldn't we do the same?

Elon musk divides his time into 5 min time boxes. It's called time boxing. He focuses on a task for 5 mins and then for the next 5 mins he focuses on a different task and so on. I'm not saying you can't do the same, the problem is your Focus. How much you can focus on something. 

When Elon Musk drinks water, he only drinks water. He doesn't think that why doge is better than any other thing in the world, or maybe he does... 

The main question is, Is your Focus that good? If you're going to learn something, immerse yourself in the learning process. When reading a book, watching a movie, writing a blog(like me), isolate yourself and only focus on that task. That's called the focus. And if you keep practising this, one day you too will be able to multitask like Elon Musk. 

Multitasking is not about doing multiple tasks at a time, it's about shifting your focus totally on one task and then another. If you're interested in Focus, time blocking and boxing stuff, I'll highly recommend this book...

And one more thing, turn off those F@cking notifications, don't get distracted. You'll learn much faster and easier.

3. Learn in short bursts

After reading this book, I came to know that the only thing that matters is not hard work, neither is time. The only thing that matters is your productivity. 

I tried working for 6-7 hours non-stop without breaks, then I tried working for 1 hour and 15 min break. You might have already guessed that I was more productive in option 2. Everything in this world needs rest, your brain too. 

Try to schedule your learning sessions in these short blocks, it can be 15-20 mins or it can be 30-45 mins, it all depends on how much you can resist your attention from dwindling. 

4. Start Experimenting on your Brain

Everyone's not the same, if Nikola tesla could live on only 4 hours of sleep that doesn't mean you can too. As I already told you, the only thing that matters is how good is your productivity.

Try sleeping 9 hours a day and see the results. And then 4 hours a day. The results will vary from person to person. One could get something done by working 5 hours non-stop while the other can do that after taking a 15 min break after each 45-50 mins session of working. 

If you feel like breaks dwindle your attention and working 5 hours non-stop is good for you, you're good to go. Nothing is the best way, it all depends on what suits you best. And the only way of knowing what's best for you is to start experimenting and observing your brain.

5. Focus on the fundamentals

I still regret not learning the fundamentals of game development first, I should have learned C# way before. Because either you can learn the fundamentals right now or you'll be forced to learn them. 

Fundamentals cover most parts of the skill, in Game Development the fundamentals are Coding and art. I ignored both of them, and now I am being forced to learn them. For example, if you can learn the 2000 most common words of a language, you'll be able to cover approx 70-80% of the language.

6. Practice consistently

Practice makes a human perfect, it's a great quote by I DON'T KNOW, and the 'man' part is changed a little by a great person too...ME.

Only practice doesn't make a human perfect too, keep practising but don't forget to explore.

There's a common belief that it takes around 10000 hours of practice for anyone to get good at anything. And it takes only 5 seconds to leave a skill after reading the '10000 hours' thing. That isn't quite true, but there's certainly a  wealth of evidence that practice and repetition are your best tools of learning.

This is the way human brains are wired, the more we do something the important it becomes, the more entrenched it becomes in our memory.

7. Explain it to someone else

Richard Feynman, a great teacher, also said that if you want to test your knowledge, try explaining it to someone else. 

It's a perfect test to see if you've truly internalized something or if you've just been going on through the motions of learning. I can suggest to you several ways of doing so. You can write blogs on the topic, like me. You can make Youtube videos. Or you can answer questions on Quora or something and in the end, you can explain it to someone in person.

8. Avoid the dip

The "Dip", a term coined by Seth Godin, occurs when you reach a point where your brain is fu@ked up and you're dissatisfied and no more interested in your learning. 

This happens a lot when people no longer see the novelty in their subject and feel burned out; in any case, you'll lose momentum, stop studying and working on your skill and fail to be professional at it.

To avoid the "dip", according to me, the best way is to start out with a small project. If you're learning 2d animation, don't start your first project by this name "Better than Odd ones out Video", you'll get exhausted after only a day of work. 

Start out by making a bouncing ball, at least you'll be able to finish the animation and move on with self-confidence rather than dumping 1000 projects in a month because they were pretty out of your league.

Conclusion

Skills don't come to you overnight. See the Title again, it says "How To Learn Anything?" rather than "How To Be Professional At Anything in 24 Hours?" 

You can learn something in 24 hours by following these tips, but can't be professional at it. Start learning from today and remember

"Everything is good if done within a limit, excluding learning"

Try to be professional at something but keep exploring and learning other stuff too because this world is pretty big and you can learn anything but you can't learn Everything.