Climbing the Learning Curve: What to Do When You’re a n00b

Chances are, inside the adjacent few months, you'll be asked at least once to acquire a new skill or torso of knowledge. If y'all're in loftier-tech, you can count on your entire skill-set becoming obsolete every few years, but even people in less accelerated fields have to keep learning just to stay even these days.

For instance, whether yous're in marketing and PR, corporate communications, human resource, or political campaigning, you've had to learn how to apply and make sense of social media – a field that barely existed a couple of years ago. That so many companies and individuals still do it badly is no alibi – if you want to stand out in these (and many other) fields, you have to master this new medium, and fast.

Learning enough about a new field to function, and doing it in a short amount of time, is something I practise all the fourth dimension as a writer. Whether it'due south putting together a sales folio for a client whose product I've never even heard of earlier or writing an article on a topic I know nothing well-nigh, I'thou constantly having to give myself a crash course in topics that, a few days before, I didn't even know were topics!

Below are some of the strategies I use to get quickly upwardly-to-speed on whatever field of study is thrown at me. Not all of these techniques are necessary in every instance, but I know I'll e'er be using at least two or three in whatever given situation. I pride myself on being able to grasp the nuts of whatsoever topic inside a few days (at most) – at least enough to inquire decent questions and follow along when somebody speaks near a subject.

1. Google information technology.

Permit's start with the obvious – modern web searching puts a tremendous amount of information at our fingertips, and makes it tremendously accessible. Since finding good information relies on the power to craft a good search query, I unremarkably beginning with reference sites similar Wikipedia to get a grounding in the general outlines of a topic, so I tin can commencement fine-tuning my search queries. I also stay on the lookout for fundamental names and organizations, which can add quite a chip to a spider web search.

To improve the quality of data my searches uncover, I will very often add one of these terms to my search queries:

• howto or how to – If I'grand looking for practical communication about a task, searching for "how to" pages volition bring me tutorials and walkthroughs, where a more full general search might bring me pages and pages of news stories, feature articles, resumes, and definitions to search through.
• ebook or e-book or filetype:pdf – For existent in-depth information, zero beats a book – except an ebook, which I can download immediately, review instantly, and search within to observe specific words or phrases.
• forum – If the feel of the "person on the street" might exist useful – for instance, in tracking downwardly the solution to technological nuisances – forums are ideal, every bit they tend to contain informal and practical advice from one person to some other.

two. Striking the library or bookstore.

With my list of keywords and important names in paw, my adjacent step subsequently searching the Cyberspace is to visit a giant edifice full of books. For bookish topics, I'll try to go to my university library (and near universities – merely alas, not all – will allow non-students and not-faculty in to wait, fifty-fifty if they won't let yous check anything out), though a lot of public libraries have many of the same resources these days. If I'm trying to learn a new skill – like Ruby programming, a short-lived fascination I entertained a couple years ago – I'll only caput to a bookstore. Y'all'd be surprised at how many "Learn X in 24 hours" type books there are out there – if more than than a handful of people are interested in learning virtually something, chances are there's a how-to book on it.

3. Look for magazines.

Don't neglect the newsstand at your bookstore (or if you have a real newsstand around, caput straight there!) or periodicals room at your library. Most subjects have a variety of magazines devoted to them, ranging from hobbyist mags to bookish journals, and spending a couple of hours with a few recent issues can get a long fashion towards familiarizing you with the main areas of interest in the field. Pay attention to the letters and editor's notes – these oft "explain the explanations" by serving as "meta-discourse" on the more complex material covered deeper in the magazine. Also look at ads, which tin can give yous leads on companies to look up. Finally, note the names of anyone who seems to exist hailed every bit a leader in the field – especially if they are profiled or interviewed.

4. Find the experts.

In strategies one-three above, y'all should have amassed a list of names of cardinal experts; Google them and try to notice their homepages. If they're academics, they should accept a homepage at their university, at to the lowest degree; if concern leaders, wait for them in the directories of the companies they work for. If you're really lucky, they'll have a personal site or even a weblog, giving yous admission to all sorts of data "straight from the equus caballus's mouth" then to speak.

5. Ask for help.

Once you've located your experts, electronic mail them or call them, explain your topic, and ask their communication. This won't work in every situation, or fifty-fifty exist appropriate, merely y'all'd be surprised at how helpful people can exist when you approach them with respect. I do this all the fourth dimension to get sources for stories I'g working on, and nobody'southward ever held my lack of expertise confronting me. Have a wait at my guide to contacting experts, How to Email a Stranger, on this site.

Also, don't overlook Twitter and other one-to-many mediums (including your web log, if you accept one). If yous have a decent-sized following at Twitter, even a hundred or so people, you lot'll be surprised at how much information you lot can turn upwards with a 140-character-or-less question. When I bought a Blackberry after 8 years of devoted Palm use, I tweeted to enquire what resource I should await at and what software I should install, and within hours I had checked installed a dozen useful programs and was wading through a six interesting websites.

6. Write virtually it.

I of the all-time ways to learn is to write nearly a topic – even if nobody else ever reads it. It quickly becomes apparent what the blank spots are in your budding new understanding, driving you back to fill in those gaps. Accept an hour or two to write a short description of what you lot've learned about your topic – who knows, it might even come in handy as a reference later on.

7. Brand something.

Of course, yous don't really starting time learning until you try to apply what you lot know to a existent-world situation. For example, while most programming books accept chapters about programming theory, they likewise walk you through program after program, starting with putting "Howdy Earth!" upward on a screen. Making something that works gives y'all an understanding of the mechanics of a topic that's far more intimate than simply reading almost it or listening to someone explain information technology can – plus, it gives you a sense of accomplishment that helps keep you from getting overwhelmed by the amount of stuff you lot even so have to learn.

8. Bring together a group.

Depending on the scope of the topic you lot're trying to learn well-nigh, you might consider joining a local enthusiasts group, signing up for a meetup, or even enrolling with a national professional organisation. The bigger groups have newsletters, magazines, or academic journals included with membership, and all of them will requite you lot an opportunity to learn about and network with the bigwigs in their corresponding fields.

ix. Start a blog.

For long-term learning, a blog that tracks your efforts and progress tin can be very rewarding. A personal journal is practiced, as well, but a blog has a few advantages over a private journal – one, you'll exist helping others at or slightly behind your level get upwards to speed, which may well become a kind of breezy support group for you all; ii, when you make mistakes publicly, y'all learn faster, peculiarly if readers catch your mistakes; and iii, you'll exist advertising to the world that you're open to communication. If you keep yourself approachable, you might find that the information you need comes to y'all, instead of the other way around.

ten. Take it i step at a time.

Endeavor to go along a adept sense of where you are and what you need to learn adjacent – you're non going to become an expert overnight. Let others guide you lot until yous tin can make skilful choices on your own, and recognize your strengths as they develop – and your weaknesses. Give yourself permission to brand mistakes, and to spend equally long every bit you need at any given level of knowledge. If you're really serious about a topic, fix long-term goals for where you want to exist in ane year, ii years, etc., and develop a plan that volition get you there.

Equally I said, I have to get a basic overview of a new field every couple of weeks or so, which may be extreme, merely that's the life I've called. These are the techniques that accept worked for me – what about you? When have yous had to learn something totally new, and how did yous do it? Let united states know about information technology in the comments.

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/climbing-the-learning-curve-what-to-do-when-youre-a-n00b.html

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