Intro

If you wanna learn something from scratch, perhaps you have an excuse to ignore some things that will be talked about in this article, that's okay, I also ignore this stuff sometimes... in the end, we are not robots. But keep reading to find out the best practices to increase you productivity, specially if you like to watch videos to learn...

Stop doing it the wrong way

You don't need to watch videos or lessons to learn something. I'm starting this article with this sentence and throughout it i'll try to convince you by giving you examples and making you question. Do not hesitate to tell me your input on this.

I'm creating this after having gone through several challenges in my career and needed to come up with solutions for them. You've probably had the experience of wanting to learn something and getting that knowledge in lessons or videos. And now I ask you, why should you resort to a video to learn it?

People choose videos because they are a more comfortable way, they prefer just hear something and do it the easy way. I agree that it's much more comfortable. But... you must change your way of learning. Videos and lessons are slow, boring and contentless, above all, they lose a lot of your time finding out if the video really delivers what you expected.

You might be thinking: “everyone has a diferente way of learning”. Yes, you are right, everyone can choose and get used to a way of learning, but get used to learn in wrong ways it’s a mistake. Insist in flawed ways, unproductive and weak, will make you weak and flawed too. You have to search the best ways to increase your productivity and stop searching for useless contents that just take your time. Suppose that you learn some technology like ReactJS, there are thousands of videos and courses (free or not) that can teach it, but they have a lot of hours, you don't need and shouldn't waste these hours...

What's the correct way?

The best way to learn something if you already have the basic knowledge are: Articles, Docs, Forums, Communities..., that is, all forms of reading and seek knowledge by yourself are better than depending on other people in videos and lessons. Practices like scanning and skimming will save your time, they filter all information you need, making you accurate in what you're looking for.

Remember the React example, suppose you already have basic knowledge of React and want to learn about the useState hook. You have two options, sear or watching videos. You'll find the answer in the video that have hours, or in documentation that you read in your time? In written format more information can be transmitted in the same amount of time, because of scanning. If I don't find it in the article I can skip it and search for another. But in a video I have to watch the whole video to find out it doesn't contain what I need.

Maybe the video can focus on content that you already know, so you'll lose your time hearing someone tell about something that you ALREADY KNOW. This wouldn't happen with an article, since you can skip that part and know where to continue or skip it and search for another. Also, maybe the video doesn't talk about what you expected, being even worse because you will have wasted time watching it.

So, you must prefer to learn something seeking by yourself, this is and will always be the best way, learn to seek for what you want and go after it.

Stop settling with the easy, the basic, the comfort zone. If only watching videos or lessons were right way, everyone would be good... be different, be the attention, do the unexpected, the useful, do what really works...

Don't waste time just listening to someone talk about something that you don't know if it's necessary. Go after, search for exactly what you want, ask the community your doubt, search for articles and get straight to the point, stop being lazy.

In short, switch from time-consuming methods to ones where you can manage your time yourself and use it for the things you need that matter.