Step 1: Define your Destination
Having a clear destination or goal not only helps you determine if you've achieved success but also allows you to reverse-engineer the steps needed to get there. In the rest of the post, I will called this your "Learning goal".
Guidance Question:
- How am I going use this knowledge or skill in the real world?
- What does using this skill/knowledge look like in the real world?
- What does success look like when you're actually applying this skill?
Then you're trying to build your learning plan around around what you're trying to do or your "destination"
This automatically addresses the challenge of transferability—the ability to apply knowledge or skills from one area to another. The more unrelated two topics are, the harder it is to transfer knowledge between them. This phenomenon is known as far transfer. The more related two topics are, the easier it is to transfer knowledge between them. This is known as close transfer. If you want to learn more about transfer, You can check out my article on transfer here.
Example: Let say I want to learn about Data-Engineering in Python, I wouldn't start learning how program and weather app or a tick tac toe program. I would automatically jump into a project that involves Data-Engineering with Python.
Step 2: Identify your resources
In this step, you're trying to find books, courses, YouTube videos that will help you learn the skill you want to learn.
Additional Tips: You can ask people on LinkedIn who already achieved the skill you want to learn on how they would learn the skill.
Guidance Question:
- Does this resource have me actually doing the skill, or just learning about it?
- How closely does the practice match my real-world application?
- Which resources give hands-on practice vs. passive consumption?
- Do the examples reflect real scenarios I'll face?
Step 3: Create a progression system
In this section, you're trying to create an progression system that allows you to slowly build up your skills to your goal.
For example: Learn Web Scrapping
- Level 1: Learn how to connect to the website.
- Level 2: Figure out how to extract the information from the website
- Level 3: Learn how to avoid bot detection
- Level 4: Store the information
Guidance Question: If I were to design a level system of me using this knowledge/skill in the real world, what would Level 1 look like? What would Level 2?, Level 3?
Step 4: Incorporate a Feedback Loop
Identify the "Success Signals"
What does good performance look like in the real situation?
What are the obvious signs when something's going wrong?
What would an expert notice that a beginner might miss?
Find Built-In Feedback Sources
What gives me immediate information without waiting for someone or something?
How can the environment/situation itself tell me how I'm doing?
What can I measure or observe right away?
Plan for Different Types of Errors
What are the main ways this skill can go wrong?
Which type of mistake teaches me more about the core skill?
How can I distinguish between different types of problems?
Changes in the future
For right now, this is currently how I'm going plan my future learning. Things will change as I figure out what works for me and what doesn't. When there are changes, I will update this post.