Teaching Myself 2 Teach Myself

The reality is I'm not really that smart!! No I'm not!! Obsessed and obsessive? Maybe. But I'm not the giga genius I like to larp in my head as! However, I am of the firm opinion that cleverness and expertise can be cultivated, and that's what I aim to do! Even though I've graduated college, a lot of what I did in school was just intuition and a little bit of studying. I feel like I could be so much better about understanding things and applying myself, so that's what I'm trying to do here.

I tend to visit my own website a lot, so I'll post this little guide as a reminder to myself! :D

Every time i want to learn something new, what do i do?

  1. Write down the end goal you want to accomplish or problem you want to solve
  2. Do all of this on paper!!! A notebook that you don't tear anything from and a Pilot G2 0.5mm pen! I know it's skinny and sharp but its a lot more legible in the long term!! Write slowly and neatly, regulate your speed of thought so you don't get burnt out!!!
  3. After a while, figure out how long it will take you to learn these things. 4 days? 4 months? 4 years? How will you test yourself?
  4. Write everything you know about the problem on a paper so far. Write until you have literally no words left.
  5. Come up with a list of questions you want answered from what you know so far. Emphasis on the harder questions.
  6. date everything!!
  7. Turn this list of questions into a tasks list in a notebook.
  8. Every time you answer a question, always answer why it is relevant or in service to solving the original problem.
  9. When finding the answer to a question, note two unrelated sources and fully paraphrase your answer by hand.
  10. If writing down some sort of production or tutorial process, make sure to take detailed notes on how to repeat results
  11. At the end of the week, synthesize all notes and findings into a personal summary. You want to quantify your growth somehow!!
  12. Lay off social media!! Unless you use it to help yourself. be active on forums!!! ask questions!! You have a pretty bad short term memory, so to make up for that you need to rely on the written word as much as you can!!
June 28, 2024