5 Phase effective learning approach for developers

You can go through 1000s of tutorials & still end up being completely clueless on how to implement the concepts, you just learnt, in the right way. This is one of the core reasons why people couldn't get enough of following tutorials & ends up being in a state known as "Tutorial Hell".

This is a state where you never feel confident enough about your foundations & just wish to continue learning indefinitely without trying to apply the knowledge.

Here is 5 phase learning approach to learn any new tech effectively & escape tutorial hell for once & all!

Why & how? 🤔

Learning begins way before you start the actual tutorial begins. The first & foremost phase is all about the recalling & understanding the standard motivation of why you want to learn this. And why this particular technology? Why not something else?

Having an end goal in mind with a soft deadline can really do wonders. Meanwhile also make sure that you are ready to devote enough time for consistent learning.

Prioritize the consistency over intensity.

Learn by Building 🛠

This is where you start with the tutorial. Here take you time making yourself familiar with the basic concepts. Now it's time to start building.

For this, I always recommend following this approach:

Once comfortable with basic concepts, try breaking the project into its basic components.

Try to figure out how to build each component individually. (Feel free to use Google here)

Pause & Revise 🔁

Focus on using your brain to process information, not storing it. As you'll learn, concepts will automatically become a second nature to you.

This is where occasionally pausing the tutorial & going back for a revision will play a vital role eventually. No need to rush.

Debug 🐞

Now up to this phase, you've completed most of all the core concepts and have built a couple of projects. You are now at the end of the tutorial, but this where the real applied learning begins.

It's time to get into reading other's people code & trying to fix them.

You can find a lot of issues on GitHub for any kind of tech you're currently learning. Try finding a couple of good first issues & try fixing them. Feel free to reach out to the project owners & maintainers for clarification & guidance.

Final Showdown ⚡

You did great! Your foundations are strong & you're ready for the final phase.

In this phase, find a good but challenging project idea & try building it from scratch. Don't follow any tutorial here, you're supposed to this on your own. But feel free to make use of google, researching, or going back to the concepts if you feel lost at any point.

That's it for today!

This write up was inspired by Jessica Wilkins' article on "How to Learn from Tutorials the Right Way – and Not Get Trapped in Tutorial Hell".

📖 Read here: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-learn-from-coding-tutorials-and-avoid-tutorial-hell/

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