learning things online can be difficult there's so many videos channels courses books and so on and it often feels like you can never really find a good flow to get into you would think that all these resources make it easy to learn but it actually does the opposite so let's fix that I'm going to show you my method of how I learn just about everything on my own and you'll be able to apply this to whatever you want to learn as well this was particularly beneficial for me in the areas of getting fluent in Japanese guitar and piano and software engineering so if you want the same outcome in whatever you like to do let's get started hey guys Von Jean here today the main Concepts we're going to go over are structured learning and avoiding bouncing around from topic to topic right away I want to say that the only difference in general between someone who's self-taught and someone who's gone to school or university is just structure and actually applying what is in that structure with that being said the overall idea here is that we're going to build out a course for ourselves and kind of Pretend We're in school or pretend that we're involved in some curriculum I really believe that this is the secret to maximizing online material while you're not getting caught up with all the shiny objects or random videos that kind of come up in the process I would highly recommend using Google Docs or notion or whatever you can even draw it on a sheet of paper for now but label some categories marked something like beginner phase intermediate phase and advanced phase I'll probably have a Graphic on the screen or an example here and then you also want a thing called references and so every time you find a video you want to take the name of the video or the link with it and put it into one of these categories if you have a book you can put the name of the book into one of those categories or an article or whatever the main point here is whatever you find start to place it into categories and this is you building out this course as a bonus tip if you're able to find a actual curriculum from a college or university or something on the Internet try to go off of that this is actually How I Learned software engineering for the business that I run now I'm self-taught but all I did is I looked up different curriculums from Harvard and these other things and whatever they listed I just found videos based on those topics and I would start to study it just like that so you can do what I did this also works well for music you can look up like a Berkeley curriculum or some other College of Music and see what you want to learn in order this isn't a mandatory step it's just helpful if you're really lost but if you have more of an idea just go with what you feel that being said as you make this course don't pile up too many videos initially try to get some to give you a confident start and then get started personally I would say get a couple beginner videos Maybe something intermediate and maybe something Advanced that way you kind of have something to look forward to but once you have that go ahead and get started on the beginner videos if there's one thing I really want you to take away from this video it's that 1% of the equation is watching the video or getting the book or some sort of course material but the other 99% is whatever you do with that I'm making these numbers up but you get the point if you ever need a reminder of this by the way I have a YouTube short in Japanese that says exactly this it's subtitled but that way you don't have to come back and watch this whole video you can just watch that as a quick reminder and then get back to work but if there's one thing I really need you to take away it's that so you can click off whenever you want just keep that in mind something else to keep in mind is that once you find a video you should really stick to that video one thing that really changed the game for me in a sense as far as learning things and actually being good at them it's that a 5 minute video or like a 10-minute tutorial could actually take you 6 Months 8 months maybe even a year to actually complete and fully Implement into your life when you understand this it's going to help you not look around for more videos or more content it's just weird because a video is 5 minutes or 10 minutes and it's quick to watch that and we feel like it's supposed to do something a lot faster than that but it's not the case people often miss this point because I don't think it's said enough I don't think it's that we're lazy I just do believe that we often overload ourselves with information thinking that there's a better way or there's more we need to know but that's not the case if you really want results just get started on whatever you have some other notes to keep in mind the first of these is that there's no correct way to learn something I know there's a stress that we bring upon ourselves trying to make sure that we're learning things in the correct order or the right way now there are fundamentals that you should keep in mind but in general keep a loose plan in mind and just follow that there's really no absolute correct way to learn something you can learn Advanced tricks before you learn beginner ones and some things and vice versa this is going to help you actually stick to the course that you make and not flip-flop around and waste time looking for more content or videos or switching categories the next concept is that it's better to know everything about one piece of content than it is to know a little bit about a lot of different pieces of content this is probably detrimental to people on the internet like me who are making content because that means you don't have to rely on us consistently putting out videos but I would much rather you have the results that you want than to just watch my stuff it's far better for you to just really fulfill those ideas that you have in your mind and get those results that you've been looking for this whole time the next one is that this is going to require a lot of focus and a conscious effort to not go searching for more material and this is something I battle every single day I don't want to sit here and sound like I'm some expert but this is still something that I have to consciously remember to not do it's very easy for me to just slide over to YouTube real quick see what I can find but I make it a point to just not do that rather than go to YouTube I actually go straight to my documents my notion page and I click that link and that's the only thing I really get into so try to keep that level of focus of course when you just feel like it on a day off or something and you want to look for something new that's cool but again try to remember that 99 and 1% rule the next one is to check in with your favorite or trusted resources here and there this will help alleviate the stress of the one I said right before this that way you don't feel like you're missing out on valuable information and you can still keep your head in the loop in a sense I actually have music channels or favorite guitar players or piano players that I look up to and those are the people I kind of check in with and what I will do is if I see them post a video I'll see if I need to put it into one of my categories and that's what I'll do so if I see them post something really Advanced that I'm not ready for yet I'll just take that link put it in my Advanced category or I'll just watch the video and enjoy it for what it is and move on with my life and get back to what I'm supposed to be doing I would highly recommend this approach if you're like me and you tend to feel like you're missing out sometimes if you're not checking in this will really help you alleviate a lot of that stress the next one is to not be afraid to actually buy a course I know I talk about using YouTube and these other resources to avoid that but some courses can count as a beginner phase in a sense for instance my piano playing I got into it with a course and that course it's not a comprehensive course of everything but it will go over the scales the notes and basic chords all that so I put that in my beginner phase as well as some other content and the main idea with the course is that you're paying for Speed you're not really paying for some super secret information you're paying for Speed so if you see a cheap course that just gets you into whatever you're trying to do I would say buy it because you kind of get a laid out plan right away and you can just get moving courses combined with YouTube material is like a really golden spot to be in it's just that you have to make it a point to actually Implement these videos again I'm going to say this again if you missed it the first two times I said it 99% of the results is going to come from what you do and that 1% is the actual material once you've really exhausted that content to the point where you can almost teach it to someone else I would say that's a decent sign to move on and something I've learned from real experience and what I see in myself what I see in other people understand that even one video studied and acted upon to its fullest extent can be worth thousands of hours of searching through material and barely applying it again I bring this up because if you're like me and you feel like you may be missing out by not having the perfect course or some other content you really are not missing out if you fully break apart what you have you're going to get so much more results than most other people that it's actually going to shock you I really feel this in Japanese because though I speak it fluently I have no certifications I did not go to school for learning Japanese I didn't do any of that I'm completely self-taught I worked there with no problem I was able to mingle do whatever I want and it really came from just that idea in general so if there's this whole video I really want to pass that on to you because I don't think it's talked about and this is really the gatekeeper to actually getting results that you want so in closing you have a lot of homework to do this video is nice and it's good you watched it but understand that even this video is going to take you a while to fully Implement especially if you don't have Google Docs yet or you don't have notion you don't have these categories laid out this is your homework to do so watch my content for the conceptual ideas and Minds set and then go watch the stuff that you actually want to get good at and right after that get off the computer or the phone as soon as possible and just start taking action I'm really big on this because I used to be into the YouTube trap as well watching video after video like this one and once I made that Discovery it changed everything for me so with all this in mind I hope that you can implement it and get the feeling that I get every day from actually progressing in multi areas or even if it's just one area actually seeing progress and not feeling like you're stuck and getting to that level that you once thought was kind of impossible anyhow love you guys if you found this helpful you can leave a like And subscribe as well helps me out a lot and it helps get this out to the people who need to see it and if you feel like it leave a comment about what you guys are into I don't really want to do this for the engagement I know some YouTubers say comment for the engagement I genuinely just want to know you can just tell me here or send me a message it doesn't really matter I'm genuinely curious on what you guys like to do so I can kind of cater my content towards that and maybe throw in examples of stuff that you guys like to do that all being said if you do not subscribe I will send a Jiu-Jitsu kaisen curse to come see you and I'll see you in the next one peace [Music]