Different approaches to reading new material vs legacy

N2ITN2IT Inactive Imported Users Posts: 7,483 ■■■■■■■■■■
I was just wondering if you have a different approach when studying something new or maybe not new but material you haven't had a lot of experience with as opposed to something you a quite comfortable with with.

For me parts of project management, SQL and VBA / Excel would fall in that area of know really well and when I read some material it just clicks, it usually requires very little effort and I can speed through it.

However then you have "new material" which you have no real world to base the material off of. What's your approach with these two situations?

I find myself reading cover to cover if the material is well known to me. However when I am reading something new in concept I find myself skipping around just trying to uncover any nuggets of information that I can snap into my real world experiences.

For instances I am studying / reading a book strictly about project financials. There are some parts that I blow through, like costing and time tracking, I performed these task on several different work efforts. However some of the more granular approaches like integrating time tracking financials with total work effort is understood but I have not leveraged a system as such so this doesn't lock in as fast. *** Don't get me wrong I understand the concept totally, but the emperative knowledge step 1 - 2 - 3 etc isn't there.


Thoughts?

Comments

  • aftereffectoraftereffector Member Posts: 525 ■■■■□□□□□□
    I'm reading a book on VoIP configuration, which is a little difficult for me to really understand without having any physical equipment or even a virtual lab available right now. I'm just reading to understand signal flow and theory - I realize that I will not remember the configuration commands or screens, and I'm fine with that.

    I think that's not really what you were asking, though. I'd say that reading a wide variety of different material on an unfamiliar subject has helped me the most - for instance, if I have no idea how RF antenna theory works, I might pick up some books ranging from hobby publications to engineering references to try to muddle together an understanding. I think the variety of sources is key; you might pick up a little detail or explanation from one source that will 'unlock' a concept from another source, and so on.
    CCIE Security - this one might take a while...
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