Learning a new skill can be a difficult process especially when you are self-learning.
Learning a skill takes a lot of patience and focus. Many times, it happens that you are very determined to learn a skill for the first week.
As soon as you start learning, you face difficulty and soon you start losing motivation.
But thankfully there are some tips and hacks you can use to learn a skill faster. Be sure of why you want to learn a particular skill.
Is it something that interests you or something that you need to have a successful career or are you just following a trend?
If you are just learning digital marketing as it is trending these days, you won’t be able to learn it completely.
Make sure you enjoy doing whatever you want to learn or that skill will help you in the future. If you don’t know what interests you, you can try multiple skills one by one for some days and observe your likings. So,
Smart Idea #1: Have a Strong Reason To Learn
There are various ways to learn a new skill. You can learn from books, videos, online courses, or by a mentor. But only learning doesn’t make you good enough at a skill.
You have to get out of the learning loop and start practicing too. It is always better if you have a certain goal in your mind before you start learning.
Let’s say you want to learn the Python programming language. Your end goal can be to make a game using python. This helps you to stay motivated while keeping the goal in the mind. So,
Smart Idea 2: Do Goal-Oriented Learning
Now once you have decided your end goal clearly, the next step is to decide what are the topics important for you to learn.
You should not try to learn everything from A-Z of that skill. Learning a skill from start to end is very long and overwhelming. Learn only that much which will help you achieve your goal.
Rest of the things you can learn later on. Follow the Pareto Principle of 80/20. 20% of your efforts will bring 80% of the results. Focus on learning that 20% of the skill can get you 80% of your goal. So,
Smart Idea 3: Use The 80/20 Principle To Learn
Coming to the most important part. Deadlines. Without deadlines, you can keep learning a skill forever.
Research done by Coursera states that self-paced online courses have about only a 10% completion rate.
Set a realistic deadline for each part of the skill. Don’t be too harsh on yourself but complete your tasks near the deadline.
Let’s say you wish to complete a topic in 3 days, so your deadline should be 2.5 days. Keeping such a deadline will help you push your limits and will keep you focused. So,
Smart Idea #4: Keep Realistic Deadlines
Any goal should be measurable. After you start learning a skill, you should measure your progress daily.
Did you achieve the goal you set for yourself, how good you are at a certain topic or how much improvement do you still need?
\Answer these questions for yourself. As you start measuring, you get clarity of how much you have achieved and how far you still have to go.
This technique keeps you in check and helps plan your next move easily. You can also share your progress with a mentor, family member, or friend for more accountability. So,
Smart Idea #5: Measure Your Progress
Now let’s summarize all the Smart Ideas we have discussed so far.
1: Have a strong reason to learn
2: Do Goal-Oriented Learning
3: Use the 80/20 principle to learn
4: Keep Realistic Deadlines
5: Measure your progress
You can download the infographic summary from the link in the description. For more techniques you can read the book Micromastery by Robert Twigger.
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