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How to learn things fast
💡 Find out how to 10x your learning + more
Heyo 👋 Jordan here,
How do you learn things?
A question that I've never thought about for the majority of my life. You can probably relate.
It's an important question, and we'll circle back in a moment. First:
17 years ago, I accidentally learned to make games.
One day I opened the map editor in Warcraft 3. It allowed me to create my very own adventure (map) — pick the heroes, terrain, and interactions.I was instantly hooked.
1 summer vacation or 400 hours of making custom maps later, I was pretty good at it. Not only that, but I've started learning a valuable skill — programming.
That massive amount of practice got me flying through the beginner programming classes at school, and I was already making games at 16. At 20, I was already comfortably doing senior-level tasks programming-wise (I was doing this non-stop, 100% of my work & spare time).
Pretty fast progress.
How do I replicate this? How do I turn this into a system?
I systematized this when I went to learn video editing. This time, I wanted to do it in just 6 months.
Spoiler alert, I did it twice. I learned to use Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve (along with a lot about camera work, shooting, and lighting).
Here's the structure for learning I used:
I found the most fun way to put the first 10 hours in. I played with the CapCut editor on my phone with clips of my doggo, Asta. Prioritize play here.
After the first 10 hours, I moved to a more professional editor — Final Cut Pro. There I had a simple goal: Learn to do the same things I did in CapCut. Spend time getting comfortable with all the buttons. I did this for another 10 hours.
20 hours in, after getting a good amount of first-hand experience playing with the software, do some formal learning. I went to YouTube and spend an hour watching the first few creators I liked. When everyone knows more than you, learn from who you can learn fastest 💁♂️
Then I spent another 10 hours just trying stuff. Trying to edit a music video of a song I like and dog clips. Having fun, but with some direction.
Then another set of YouTube videos.
Then another 10 hours doing.
Rinse & repeat.
One of those 10-hour work sessions + the research after, took me about a week to finish. In 6 months, I must've done about 250 hours of editing to get quite comfy with the whole process.
Now, how to do this in 3 months?
Do it twice as much.
I simply organized my day in a way that gave me another hour/day to edit. Said "no" a couple of times. Didn't go out twice. Nothing big, but enough to carve a ton of extra time in my schedule.
Here's the framework:
🧠 The Learning Framework
Play for the first few hours. Don't take it too seriously, go crazy, and spend as much time as you can doing something similar/simpler.
Next, focus on the doing. Spend the majority of your time doing things. You should stay here for the majority of you learning anything.
Occasionally, stop and reflect on what you've learned. Consult with experts (offline or online). Understand the things you were doing up 'till now better.
Repeat.
How do you learn things?
💡 Quote of the week
If I give up now, I'm going to regret it.
🔥 Epic things
Consensus — Consensus is a free app that allows you to search through scientific papers using AI. It's insanely useful to get reliable information!
You have an internal narrator — do you have an internal narrator in your head or not? Realizing this helped me accept other people's opinions more easily 👀
The day you became a better writer — a sub-300-word masterclass on writing 🤯
👀 Content I made
How to get a raise framework — I got inspired to do this from a few friends, who never asked because they didn't know how. I even created a handy framework to follow.
Recurring tasks in Notion — Notion FINALLY added recurring tasks. I was so sick, but I couldn't not shoot & edit this one 😅
New Twitter account — abandoning your Twitter for 3 years is not a great strategy. Just sayin'. I got tired of trying to revive it and decided to start from the top. Let's see how fast I get to 10,000 followers this time.
Notable thread to read 👇
To guarantee software will fail:
Overengineer it 🛠
But the same can be said about life.
Here are the 3 ways people overengineer their lives (& how I solve them): http
— Jordan Parker 💡 | No-Stress Success (@JordanDParker_)
7:05 AM • Nov 18, 2022
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Stay awesome, friends!— Jordan