Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Concentrated Effort

How to accelerate your tools learning? It can be any tool, today I am going to share a technique that has enabled me to master many computer languages and tools in a very short span of time. Yes this is one technique that is the core in all that I have learnt so far. The technique is so powerful that rewards are 100% if its applied correctly.

The basic premise is total 100% concentrated effort towards THE TOOL. By concentrated I mean concentrated like sulfuric acid. The main word is concentrated. Concentrated not as in concentration. Concentrated like when your brain refuses to accept any more information or inputs but you force it and carry on with the tool. Concentrated as there is nothing else apart from this. 

Well why this technique works perhaps it works because you are fully focused on the tool You might not see the benefit immediately but your concentration will push your brains limit and will make you understand more. This is what I did in my latest tool learning experience. 

Although I have already explained the process here, what I didn’t mention was that for the last 10 days I am working on that particular software 8 hours straight with lunch break of course. I am compressing my every bit of my time on the tool. Its not that I am repeating all the same problems yes I am repeating the tutorials but every time I am doing one tutorial I am applying all the things that I have learnt from the previous tutorial. My tutorials are connected and they are not pockets of island now but a series of inter connected activities. If I learnt the technique of defining groups, I am utilizing it in all my next tutorials even its not mentioned, if I learnt the technique of sectioning and drawing graphs for stresses span wise for the compressor blades I am creating those contour maps for all tutorial even if they don’t mention them.

Sometime since I have done so many times, my mind is making me explore different things that I am not sure what they are but exploration is revealing them. All this concentrated single minded focus on the tool is making my mind to catch up things better and understand the feel of the software faster. Yes the software is vast and i don’t expect to learn it all in few days.

One of the interesting thing that I have seen coming up in all this is that, when I catch a new word or phase on the menu, chances are that I already have a vague idea of what it does or I know where exactly it is used and where I can dig more. So the takeaway for anyone form this is that after the preliminary investigation and facts gathering mission delve deep and begin a concentrated effort.. focus on the methods and the process. Don’t worry about the results and how they look, the mission here is to get an overall feel and to soften the soil of your brain to well receive the seeds of the tool.

The technique can be applied to learning new programming language, new software tool from a cad program to an analysis tool. If you apply similar or this technique in your area of work profession or play, do let me know in the comments. Or if a different approaches work for you then also chip in your comment.

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