Learning How to Learn New Things

It is a general trend of the market to always learn something new but nevertheless, it is the most tedious task. One can not simply start to learn something they put hands on from start to end in one go.

From statistics, I have observed that nine out of ten learners fall short of interest and drop learning the new concept altogether.

As an Instructor and trainer of the technology, one of the most common questions I have faced is how to learn new technology with ease. Here comfort of learning is the primary focus because if someone does not feel familiar enough to the topic after putting an initial ten hours of effort in some task they ask themselves a simple question:-

Let’s start our journey with one example

Here I am describing learning path I personally follow to learn a new technology. And the bonus point is We will be doing all this by learning with an example of exploring non-relational databases. Or to be more specific MongoDB.

You can choose your own first topic to practice this process but I personally like the topic of non-relational databases for very simple reasons.

• They let me play with much more data.
• Lesser rules to bind you with what you can do.
• Trending topic in the market and exposes you to plenty of terminologies.

Step 1: Watch a video like one tempting coke ad

This might sound funny but most of the tech you wish to learn is generally backed by some powerful organizations who wish to fire up the usage of their tool. And hence you will find generally five-minute videos on home pages or docs of the official website.

The video will be bending your thoughts towards

• Whatever you wish to make will be easier if you know this thing.
• Your life literally depends on learning this cool thing 😉.

I am sure you loved hearing cheap thrills but here is MongoDB version of it.

Step 2: Watch a tech talk of ~ 40 minutes

Tech talks are talks or conferences around the globe. Some of the major such events are Devoxx, Oracle One Summit and many more.

Search on youtube and find a nearly forty minutes talk and watch it without a hiccup. Note: It is certain at the moment that you will not be able to understand whole content and terminologies but certainly from here you will know:

• If this is what you want to learn (a very important decision to take).
• Most famous terminologies used while working with this stuff.
• What all you will need to learn to get confidence in this topic.
• What all you can expect after you learn this piece of technology.

Here is a talk you can watch about MongoDB to have better understand what I expect you to point towards:

Step 3: Watch a Hello world playlist of ~ 1 hour

Now that you are enough dissolved in the topic and have got sufficient interest fuel to keep you running. It is time to do some hands on. You can easily find any introductory playlist on YouTube. Find one which is neither too small nor too large. I generally suggest a playlist of 1 hour to 1.5 hours.

Total time needed to spend on this block is 3 hours. where 40–50 percent goes to watching videos and remaining to set up and make hello world application of your own.

Creating something on your own gives confidence boost and keep motivation up as you move forward with the topic so it is highly suggested to start implementing what you see in the playlist and not to simply skim over the content.

I am not adding videos link for this section for a sense of exploration.

Step 4: Watch a detailed playlist of ~ 2.5 hours

Start back from ground zero at this list even if you feel like you have already covered the basics as if it good to retouch foundation concepts more than one time. Plus boosting ground concepts spikes up the interest even more.

At this point, you will start to have some doubts and questions you need to resolve urgently and you might feel stuck without resolving them. I suggest taking a leap of faith and completing this content no matter what comes in the way (including your mood to drop the learning altogether)

Whatever issues you are facing in this step are only there to be resolved in next and our final step.

Final step: Look at a legitimate source for guidance

Browsing over the internet in our recommended sequential fashion gave you an initial head start over the topic. But if you really want to dive deep into something it is recommended to look forward to

• A mentor to guide you through.
• A book for completion of concepts.

The requirement of a mentor cannot be ignored as it is nearly impossible to get in depth of something without getting stuck. If you are not having doubts then certainly you are not doing it right.

Concluding our journey:

We have spent our time in the sequence of

1. ~ 10 minutes of watching the advertisement
2. ~ 40 minutes on tech talk
3. ~ 1 hour on exploring basics (hello world app of corresponding)
4. ~ 2 hours to reach the depth of concepts and accumulating doubts.

Still what remains is most important. Get under the guidance of people already working on what you want to learn is the most effective way of solving accumulated doubts and move forward with in-depth learning.

Well, that’s it for today!
If you have any doubts about the content covered in the blog post above, feel free to comment them down below and I’ll try my best to answer them.

Interested in learning Android Development, Full-stack Web Development using Nodejs or Machine Learning and Deep Learning? Check out our online courses on https://online.codingblocks.com

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this story, please click the 👏 button and share to help others find it! Feel free to leave a comment 💬 below.
Have feedback? Let’s connect on Twitter.