[tylerdane]

"Learning anything is a long term project, and long term projects are necessary for building a sense of control over your circumstances. Almost nothing can be deliberately and meaningfully changed within the scope of a day, but in months, certainly years, a lot of things can be made to happen."

[atoav]

Nothing is as sad as seeing some young motivated student losing patience if the task doesn't turn out to be a quick, easy win. The saddest however are students so eager for the quick, easy win that throughout their academic career they repeat the pattern and never really dive deep into any topic.

I had a student come to me with essentially the same problem over two years and each time I helped her she was in refusal to listen as she stressed herself to just make it work now. Her problem was that she never took the time to do the basics and rejected any learning opportunity as it stared her in the face.

You get results over time if you dedicate yourself to just doing the thing. For many subjects there is no shortcut, no way to walk the path without actually walking it. Every time you encounter an issue there is a learning opportunity. Use it.

[bluefirebrand]

Something I find myself struggling with is the "tutorial trap"

You follow a tutorial to do something, feel happy about it. Then you start a new project to put your new skills to good use and... Blank. No idea where to start, no idea how to proceed.

It's so important to build stuff, using references is fine, but following tutorials is not the way forward! You have to work on your own without the training wheels.

[dofm]

The great lesson here is: have your own thing you want to make or do, and then select tutorials that help you approach it, step by step. Reproduce the tutorial but also bring it to bear on something you want.

In my experience most people can do this, if they think about it a bit — identify the thing they want to learn and find a tutorial for it. Which is amazing, really; this sort of meta-knowledge is a remarkable human concept.

[atoav]

Tutorials are fine, especially if you know nothing doing the motion is often better than fooling around. Just like with languages there are passive skilla (your capability to understand a certain thing) and active skills (you capability to use a thing practically when the situation demands it). It is natural to understand more than you can apply.

Once you're a little more confident (you know a bit, but not much) I suggest to modify the tutorial as you follow along, that makes the tutorial harder and gives you small challenges to overcome while still giving you general guard rails.

Then as soon as you're dangerous enough to be let loose you should pick your own projects that are slightly above your skill level. Maybe try different approaches if you're unhappy with the first result.

When I wanted to improve my comic drawing skills ca. 2009 I started drawing and publishing a daily webcomic strip for a year. That really helped.

But tutorials remain useful even if you're advanced or a pro. E.g. if you use blender a lot and a new feature comes around watching a tutorial on it is a very efficient way of getting up to speed. Of course you will watch tutorials differently from a beginner, you will pick up on different things etc.

The best way to learn is a serious project with a deadline, but if you have that deadline it will make you wish you had watched some tutorials when you had the time. Source: I teach this kind of stuff at the university level for 6 years now.

[human305893]

why not both. limit yourself to 1 tutorial/book (i prefer books). then build something. For any creative hobby i think the biggest issue is not having something you want to build.

[armchairhacker]

> For any creative hobby i think the biggest issue is not having something you want to build.

For me it is. Even in my domain where I’m an expert and it’s fun, it only is if I’m working on something interesting.

[atoav]

What does wonders for me is to go out into nature, a beach, a lake or a park, or even a longer train ride, with nothing but a pen and notebook, while keeping the phone in my bag. When I return usually I have a few pages of ideas.

Sometimes distraction is the main issue when it comes to having ideas.

[bluefirebrand]

My problem is honestly that I have too much I want to build, but I don't have all of the skills I need.

I get stuck into this mentality of "I need to learn and master X, Y and Z before I can even start building my dream"

Would be much better served by just building whatever and learning the skill