[xenophanes]

Learn epistemology (the philosophy of learning).

Most stuff in the field is bad (worse than useless). Start with this book:

http://beginningofinfinity.com/

Karl Popper's books are good too.

Epistemology is the long term route. No instant results, but useful for everything and very efficient in the long run. That's the best way if you plan to learn about many things to be a polymath.

And for discussion of autodidact stuff, ask your questions on this email list:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/taking-ch...

I've already done this stuff. Feel free to email me [e-mail]

[stewbrew]

Epistemology is rather about what "knowing" means. It's not a set of rules that tell you how to learn a language etc.

[xenophanes]

Epistemology explains how learning (aka creating knowledge) happens and what sorts of methods are capable of learning or not, and what sort are more or less effective at learning (aka at getting knowledge). This is useful to actually learning (anything) effectively.

Note again that most work in the field is terrible, so it doesn't actually do this. But the stuff I recommended does.

[stewbrew]

Epistemology is a field of philosophy not psychology.