Follow these 8 rules to triple your speed of learning

Resource

• Slide Deck of "How to Learn Effectively"

Video Transcript

Now that you know the complete path of skills that you need to become a job ready and productive developer, the next logical question you may have is OK I know what to learn.

The next question is how do I learn it? Where do I learn it from? And in this video I'm going to explain the concept about how to go about effectively learning these skills. So that's the presentation we're gonna have today. So how do you really go about learning this really seemingly alien skill for writing code which is very weird. And then talking to a computer. So the answer to the question is the way you learn how to code is exactly the way you learn any particular skill.

Now when you were a child you copied your parents you copied your siblings you copied what you saw and that is the way you acquired skill. So coding is actually no different. Just to give you a solid example. A lot of authors who are trying to become authors like somebody else they aspire to become like they actually hand copy the writings of the author they want to become like they aspire to be like. So when they copy, hand-copy like a machine like a robot their writings they actually subconsciously ingest the pot processes the writing style of the big author.

They want to become like that's the exact way you're going to learn how to code. That's the exact way I learned how to code. That's the exact way I learned how to do graphic design. So what I would do is when I wanted to learn how to code when I would watch a particular video or tutorial video. I would actually copy and follow along the code. The program that the video was showing me. So when I teach at iLoveCoding. I will give you two things. I will give you the baseline background knowledge but then I will show you a practical example on how to apply that knowledge. So when I'm showing you those examples it's your job. That's my instruction to you that you copy along and follow along what I'm telling you, what I'm teaching you. So when you actually just mindlessly copy you're going to subconsciously digest and understand the concepts. And even when you're copying you're going to find some mistakes that you're making and that's going to internalize the concepts even further. So the first rule even though it's very simple is to copy and follow along just like any skill is acquired by copying.

The second thing which is very important and that's the reason why a lot of people struggle is that they have something called a "shiny object syndrome". What you need to do is ignore any media, any mainstream media, or any kind of information that's telling you hey learn jQuery or you don't learn jQuery or you got to learn these five things to become super genius and become job ready. All these blog articles people who are writing that's their business to write. That's how they make money. The number one technique of journalism and news is that they show you something new. Right. So when you see in the news there is something new out there. You go out and look at that information. But any successful company is successful or any successful individual is successful. Even you, you are successful in certain areas is because you stuck with the fundamentals, some baselines and that worked for you.

If you kept on chasing the new stuff the shiny stuff it wouldn't work for you, people would not progress. So ignore shiny objects ignored the tendency to chase after the new thing. It's not going to work for you.

The next thing which is kind of the same goes along with the "shiny object syndrome" is to stick with fundamentals first approach. What do I mean by that? What I really mean is when you are learning how to code there are certain concepts there are a lot of small mini concepts that's going to show up right. And when they show up don't just graze through it. Try to understand the core concepts and in iLoveCoding training I actually give you the the new concept in a fundamental way. So when you have a solid foundation when you go at the workplace when you're trying to make your programs you're going to be much more efficient at making those programs because you have the solid foundation. If you think about any particular sport let's say golfing any kind of sport all or mixed martial arts what they do is they actually repeatedly practice the fundamental moves of whether it be golfing or whatever sport they practice the moves the fundamental moves again and again so they never have to lose their foundation because all new techniques and skill is built on the foundation. So all these new libraries and frameworks and all these new stuff is out there is just new temporarily. The foundation is never going to go away so let's say bootstrap framework as new, React.js is new. It's very hot Vue.js is new, React.js is new, React Native is new. There's so many new stuff but all this new stuff is actually built on top of the fundamentals of HTML and CSS and JavaScript. So actually I released a course on HTML and CSS like 4 years ago and after four years the fundamentals remain the same and the course was doing pretty well unless I later released a version to just for better explanations. But the training and the concept remained the same because fundamentals tend to not change. So once you have a solid foundation you focus on the fundamentals. The way I teach you in iLoveCoding you're going to make your progress much more faster.

Learning technique number four quickly translate theory into real world use cases. So one of the things about learning is so difficult, learning how to code is so difficult is because they have this weird difficult looking, difficult sounding words, "constructor", "prototype", "coercion", "closures" right? All this weird sounding words that scare us. And the reason they scare us is because they look complicated they sound complicated but they're actually very simple if they are explained correctly to you and a lot of times they are not explained correctly because the teacher who is trying to teach us many at times, I'm just not happy to inform you and many times they don't even understand the concept themselves. Hence they are not able to translate the knowledge to you. That's just sad but that's true. I'm sorry to say that. So whenever you learn a new concept you take that concept you say okay. The new concept is always gonna be vague. Right. So when you translate that vague concept into a practical use case that's when the real learning happens.

That's what when you actually understand the concept is when you apply. Let's say if you try to explain a child what walking is like the child is like I don't know but if you show me what I'm doing with this two feet, two legs this is walking you're like Okay I know what walking is now is just when people move from one place to another with their two feet that's walking right. But but if you just put it into a definition of a dictionary it becomes weird, alien and not human. Okay so that's the one of the key foundations, the way I teach at iLoveCoding is I tell you the the new concept because you need to learn new concepts but you translate that into a practical example.

Learning technique #5. That is then do not commit to memory. Anything that can be looked up in a book and that is a quote by Einstein and I live by it. And the thing is that there's so much to learn you. I'm gonna tell you just right now. Even after four years or three years or five years or probably seven years you're still going to be learning coding because coding is a long journey. It keeps on happening and you're gonna be a developer let's say in four months five months six months seven months one year whatever your timeline is you're going to become that developer you're gonna be professional you're gonna be proficient but you're gonna continue to learn so it's not that when you are learning you memorize all these concepts all what are arrays what are our functions what are the five different properties that are array has and stuff like that. All this this gibberish stuff you're not going to memorize use you do not have to memorize. Professional Developers are allowed to Google stuff and look up resources relook up their knowledge and refresh their knowledge on the job when they're doing it. So there is no requirement for you to memorize these things the way it is it's gonna be memorized is when you keep on doing it. When you keep on building these programs it's going to automatically the important stuff is going to automatically become habit. And the more or less you use to stuff is going to automatically be something in the back of your head and you can quickly Google it when the need comes

With that, I want to give you three fool tests that there are certain tests that I'm going to give you that's going to determine if you're making the progress in the correct direction.

So fool test number #1 is

"If you did not code, You did not learn"

So a lot of time is going to happen is when you watch my videos you say hey you know. Oh yeah I understand this. It makes sense. Piece of cake. But my thing is if you did not copy my example to what I showed you then you have an illusion of learning. You actually did not learn. So back to the concept Number one I was copy example code. So when I show you certain code it's your job to follow along and copy those examples. If you did not code those examples then you merely have an illusion of learning and understanding that knowledge that understanding is gonna quickly fade away as not going to serve you. So if you did not code you did not learn.

Fool test #2 is "If you did not ship, you did not build".

So there is a very famous quote by Steve Jobs he said "great artist ship" or actually a "real artist ship". And what that really means is artist is somebody who creates OK a programmer is a creator a graphic designer is a creator an artist who draws is a creator author is a creator artist who acts on television or movies is an artist, right. So anybody who creates is an artist and shipping the concept of shipping means that when you launch something so them and you create your let's say you book or a blog or a program or a software or some painting you have to launch it to the world and if you do not launch it if you did not ship it then that means you'd never built it.

It's it's in your lab. That's your that's your experiment. So if you are if you did not ship if you did not launch your creations, if you do not launch your application if you'd not launch your code to the real world to github and add it to your portfolio that means you never built. So you have to make the the emphasis on when you create something it's not gonna be perfect. It's never going to be perfect. You're gonna keep every new creation you make is gonna be better but you gonna keep on improving that. So if you do not ship it that means you never built it. Okay?

And full test #3 is "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it yourself" And that's by Einstein and that is the concept that a lot of teachers of the in the coding world and maybe you have had some good teachers and bad teachers of different subjects. We all have right. Let's be honest about good teachers. We have had bad teachers throughout our our our life. And the good teachers have the ability to make things explain us things in a simple manner that's digestible for us. And the reason they're able to do that is because they actually have a core understanding of that particular concept. So it's my job to explain to you things simply. And if I did not explain it simply, that means that I did not do my job.

I maybe don't understand the concept myself. And it's then your job is to understand that concept on a clear manner so that you are able to explain it. And if you are able to explain that concept whatever the new concepts you're gonna learn in programming if you can explain it that means you understand it. If you cannot explain it that means you don't understand clearly enough. And that's very important for you because when you go to you to do your interviews you're going to be asked these questions like "What is a call stack?" thats it, point blank. The interviewer is going to just ask you a point a blank question. Question What is it called stack. "How does it asynchronous functions work in JavaScript?", "What are promises?" just like these point blank questions that you're you're thinking right now. Oh my God I don't know what this is but I'm gonna explain these things to you in a simple manner and you will have to practice to answer these things in a simple manner. So you are interview-ready and I'm gonna help you with that. So that's my three fool test that's gonna help you towards the direction of learning things correctly. So you become job-ready, interview-ready, resume-ready, portfolio-ready. That's pretty much it for this video. I want to talk to you in the next.