How to Be an Effective Learner

Most of my workdays I am assessing various technology solutions for clients/partners. Deciding what to integrate and what not to integrate. I view technology from a growth & marketing perspective (as well as nuts and bolts). Simply, what will drive this business forward?

In essence I am expected to learn about a service/product, distill down what it does to it's most essential functionality and then recommend a course of action for clients. Build or Buy?

As such, I need to learn about multiple products and services very quickly. I found a very helpful post from Carsten Pleiser on Indie Hackers. He recommended something on Coursera called "Learning How To Learn". This has been very helpful, so wanted to share. https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/

I 100% resonate with Carsten's takeaways from the course :

1. Exercise and walking is a great way to build new synapses in the brain and improve the overall learning
2. Reading the first and the last chapter of a book can give you a  general idea of the content and is often a first step to grasp general  concepts. Before starting to read, scan through each chapter for a  general overview.
3. Distribute learning over several days. Avoid overloading your brain and definitely avoid last-minute learning.
4. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you've mastered the content.  Instead, repeat in your own words and make notes. The Cornell Notes  technique is quite powerful. http://coe.jmu.edu/LearningToolbox/cornellnotes.html
5. Mix different topics and areas of learning to build stronger synapses  and connections in the brain, be open to learning new things across a  wide variety of topics.
6. When it comes to teaching and learning coding or technical concepts, the best way for me personally is to actually build little projects.  Watching videos and tutorials can lead you into thinking that you understand it. Too often though, this is not the case.