[Tashtego]

I've been trying to get better at this myself. Although, you do feel foolish when you bang your head against something for six hours, and then you get your first (correct) answer on stack overflow five minutes after you post.

Still, if you're not feeling foolish often, you're not learning. Competence is deadly that way.

[wccrawford]

Learning to find the answer yourself is -way- more helpful than having it provided to you. Don't regret those 6 hours. It's a process.

[highace]

Agreed. Plus next time you won't have to go looking for it on Stack again because it'll be ingrained, painfully, in your brain. And you'll probably learn a whole lot of other things along the way too.

StackOverflow isn't a total no-no, just don't make it priority 1.

[minikomi]

Or, if it's important, go to stack but make a record of what it was... Then try to do the same thing without looking a weekend down the line .. sometimes things can't wait!