In a few of my posts I’ve mentioned purposeful learning. I now realize that not everyone knows what I am referring to. If you’ve ever tried to learn something in theory just for the sake of knowing it you might have better insight.  Especially if you later had a reason to learn the same topic and apply that knowledge.  You’d find the learning came faster, easier, and was easier to remember.

A Real Example

A real good, but simple, example is how to calculate area.  It is a simple concept for most adults, but try and remember being young and first learning the concept.  Imagine instead of just trying to later remember that area is two measurements multiplied that you had a hands on experience with it?  Say you were putting down new tiles in your kitchen.

[Tile image originally by Lukas Juhas at Unsplash then modified by author]

You’d look up how to calculate area.  From there you’d measure your kitchen and see that it is 12 feet by 10 feet.  After doing the math you’d know that 12 x 10 is 120 square feet.  For convenience, let’s say Home Depot is selling 1’x1′ tiles in the color you want.  You’d purchase 120 of them and bring them home.  As you worked through the boxes, you’d see how the shortest length was 10.  And as each row was completed you have 10 fewer tiles.  And when the room was done, all 120 would be utilized.  You’d be easily able to see how the room is 10′ by 12′ and that you went through 120 tiles.

A More Conceptual Example

Now let’s apply this example to something more conceptual, like programming.  I recently updated a script of mine so that one of the files had the parameters in a different order.  The goal was to make it easier to maintain as it grew.  Rather than manually edit 30 lines in a CSV file and switch columns it was quicker to just write a quick script and do it without typos or errors.  But if it was a huge file, and you were new to programming and didn’t want to manually do this you’d walk through small steps figuring out each step as you go.

The first step to figure out would be opening a file to read it line by line.  From there you’d want to understand how to process each line.  And this would be followed by how to then write a new file.  With each step you would be one where you had a goal and you’d be able to quickly see if you had figured out that step.  You would also find that each lesson would be better retained from this methodology.

So if you’ve got something you want to learn – programming, big data, machine learning, blockchain, etc., find a project where you’ll actually leverage the skill to do something clearly defined.