When I’m learning something new now, I’ll often look around at other beginners and see them struggling with things while I’ll be ready to move on. I often wonder what is the difference? I have no doubt that some of it might be due to nature and genetics. But I have also noticed general things I do that allow me to learn faster than others. Here is what you can do to learn faster:

Adopt a Learning Mindset

This is probably one of the biggest aspects. People are 99.9% the same. We are much more similar than different. A lot of the time we don’t realise this because it’s much easier to notice the differences. Being similar means that anything someone else has learned, you can learn too…if you put in the effort.

Know you are going to Fail

When you start something new, you will fail the first time. Maybe the second or third time too. I think everyone innately understands this. Unfortunately, many people try to avoid this. When starting something, they will spend a long time trying to decide the best way to do it in an attempt to avoid failing. This leads to people giving up before they have even started or overthinking.

For example, when I decided to learn salsa dancing last year, I signed up for a course which was quite expensive and wasn’t teaching me what I wanted to learn. I spent a lot of time and money on it and didn’t receive as much value from it as I should have. Later I found different classes that were much cheaper and more valuable to me so I switched. Signing up for those first classes was a failure in that I wasn’t getting good value for my money but it was much better to do that than take time hemming and hawing about which direction to go.

Another reason people learn slowly is ego. As we grow older, many people don’t want to be seen as beginners. It’s a good thing we didn’t know this when we were babies. There may be a lot of people who never learned to walk or talk if we did. Can you imagine a baby not enjoying the process of learning to crawl or walk?

Knowing you are going to fail at something the first few times means you should jump right in. There is no avoiding it. Get those failures out of the way quickly so you can move on to the learning stage.

Rest and take Breaks

Rest is completely undervalued in our culture. I like not being busy and having lots of leisure time. Many people don’t seem to be like this. They “brag” about how much they work or how little sleep they get. There is a limit to how much a person can do or learn in a set period of time. Once you reach that limit, you will not be able to do any more until you rest and re-charge your batteries.

I have forced myself to go to dance classes when I was really tired and they have been a waste of time. I wasn’t able to retain anything I learned. Contrast that to classes where I had a nap beforehand and the difference is incredible. I was able to retain a lot more of what I learned and I had a lot more FUN! You should be taking breaks after 45 minutes of learning to let your mind absorb and process the new information.

Understand the learning curve

The best book I have read on learning is “Mastery” by George Leonard. One of the many great insights in the book, that is obvious when you think about it, is that we don’t learn linearly.

Not how we learn

Instead, we learn in a series of rises and falls.

Two steps forward, one step back

We take two steps forward, one step back and then be stuck at a plateau. This plateau could be anywhere from a few minutes to several years. Many people quit when they are in one of these plateaus. It’s easy for us to get frustrated and think we have stopped learning. Instead, enjoy the plateau! It is your mind’s way of saying “Ok, you have learned enough for now. I need to process all this new information and master it before we can move on.” The plateau is a necessary part of the learning process. It allows you to retain what you have learned.

A great thing to know about the learning curve is how fast you can advance. After just 6 months of practice, you will be better at that skill than 90% of the population. It doesn’t matter if you are a complete beginner. No matter what you take on today, you will be better than almost everyone in only six months if you practice regularly.

After that, the curve really steepens. It takes another 10 years to get into the top 1%. Understanding this scale lets you be aware of how much effort you want to put in. Maybe the top 10% is good enough for you. I am in Toastmasters but have no aspirations to become a professional public speaker. Because of this, I don’t feel bad if I am not putting in as much effort into that as in other areas. Some other things, like dancing or programming, I do want to be in the top 1% and so I need to practice regularly for a longer period of time to achieve that.

Everyone has the ability to learn. If you haven’t used the learning portion of your brain for a while it may take longer to re-activate it. You can learn quickly and you can learn whatever interests you.

Enjoy the learning process. Be like a child. Jump into things. Have fun!

No. You already run a business, and that business is You, Inc.

No matter if you are an employee or employer, you are operating a business. Each month you have revenue (income) and expenses. You have a balance sheet (whether you realise it or not). You have at least one customer. Sounds like a business.

One of the best realisations I have had in my career is that I am not an employee, I am a business of one. As an employee, I choose to provide my services to one client. As a business, it is quite risky to have just one client. However, if you choose to do so, you need to be aware of the pros and cons.

Thinking as owner of You, Inc. puts me in a different mindset than if I consider myself an employee. As an employee, the company is in control of the work I do. As a business owner, I am in control. It helps me question things like: Is this the kind of business I want to be in? Am I providing good value? Will my clients want to work with me again?

When you start thinking of yourself as You, Inc., different questions start to come up? Am I running my business well? Am I investing in the future of my business? How can I grow? Is it smart having only one client? What are the goals for my business?

It is important to run your business well because how you run You, Inc. today is the way you will run a “traditional” business. If you do not communicate well with your client now, then you will not communicate well with clients in the future. If you are running a loss every month, you will do the same with your business. Does You, Inc. operate with little or no debt? It is important to get You, Inc. running smoothly before moving onto bigger things otherwise you won’t be able to handle them.

A year after winning the lottery, most winners say they wish they had never won. Generally, life only lets you move on to the next step when you are ready. If you jump too far ahead, such as in the case of lottery winners, it usually causes too much hardship.

To run You, Inc. successfully, copy what successful businesses do. Just do it on a lower scale.

Good businesses spend money on sales and marketing.
Good businesses do not rest on their past. They are constantly investing in development of new products (skills).
Good businesses demonstrate values and try their best to live up to them.
Good businesses reward those who help them.
Good businesses treat others fairly and courteously.

To shift your mindset, spend a little time each day thinking about your business. If you were in control, what are some things you would do differently? Then realise that you are in control.

I read this quote a couple years ago and have tried to live by it since to see if it is accurate.  I wouldn’t consider myself in the top 5% so it hasn’t worked yet.  I keep doing it though because I see why it can work.  To be in the top 5%, you have to do things only the top 5% do.  The top programmers continually learn new and better ways of programming and if you do that, then one day you will be among them.

What does this have to do with blogs?

It is tempting to go through RSS feeds and think you have improved your knowledge.  When you think about what you learn by reading blogs, have you really learned that much?  Blogs are great but there is a major problem with relying on them for learning.  How much time does it take for an average blogger to write up a blog post?  A couple hours?  Maybe more if they aim for higher quality.  Compare that with books.  Authors spend months and months writing the content for a single book.  Books go into much more depth than even the best blogger could provide. When choosing sources to learn from, pick the ones that have had the most effort and thought put in. Books > articles > blog posts > comments

A programmers job is on getting things done and getting things to work.  When you can reliably get things working with little effort, complacency can begin to sink in.  You start thinking that because you always get things to work, you know everything.  This is dangerous. It’s a good reason to read books to keep you humble.

Whenever I’m reading a technical book, I’ll always find better ways of doing things. It could be simple like learning a new function or bigger such as design methods. This keeps me from wrongfully thinking I know everything. If I can still learn new things, I am far from being an expert.

Can you really accomplish much in 15 minutes?

You would be surprised how 15 minutes per day adds up.  The first few days seem like nothing. After a week or two you realise how much you have picked up. 15 minutes doesn’t allow for excuses. No matter how busy anyone can find 15 minutes each day. This can be applied in other areas as well.  If you have a business idea but think you don’t have enough time, start doing it for 15 minutes per day.  You will soon start to see major progress.

But you say, “I don’t want to buy technical books. They will be out of date in 2 months and will just collect dust on my shelf.”

Luckily the Internet has solved that problem. I recently signed up for Safari Online and couldn’t be more pleased. There are thousands of technical titles to choose from for only $23 per month. Considering that just one technical book costs double that, it is an excellent deal. I can read as many books as I have time for and don’t need them cluttering up my desk afterwards.

There is no excuse not to develop your skills a little each day. Time and cost are not issues. Do yourself a favour. Read for 15 minutes each day.

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Link to Safari Books Online