The Hard Thing About Learning Hard Things

As a seasoned full-stack developer, I‘ve come to believe that the defining skill of my career has been my ability to learn quickly and deeply in unstructured environments. The technologies, frameworks, and best practices of software development are evolving at an astonishing rate, and the ability to rapidly assimilate new knowledge is essential for staying relevant and effective in this field.

Consider this: the half-life of a learned skill is currently around 5 years, according to research from McKinsey. That means that half of what you learned 5 years ago is obsolete or outdated today. And the pace of change is only accelerating – IBM predicts that in the next couple of years, the half-life of a skill will decrease to a mere 2.5 years.

In a world where the foundations of knowledge are constantly shifting beneath our feet, the most valuable expertise is not mastery of a particular technology, but rather mastery of the learning process itself. And when it comes to complex, rapidly evolving domains like software engineering, that learning process is almost always unstructured.

The Learning Velocity Gap

In structured learning environments like classrooms and bootcamps, knowledge is neatly packaged and spoon-fed to students in a linear progression. The path from A to Z is well-charted, with clear milestones and assessments along the way. In this context, the primary determinant of learning velocity is simply the hours of focused effort invested – anyone who puts in the time and follows the curriculum will progress at roughly the same rate.

Unstructured learning, in contrast, has no pre-defined path, no map to the destination. You have to forge your own trail, guided by your intuition, curiosity, and the feedback you get from experimentation. In this environment, the number of hours invested is a poor predictor of outcomes – two people could spend the same amount of time studying a topic, but achieve vastly different levels of mastery.

What separates the fast learners from the slow in an unstructured context is not the quantity of time invested, but the quality of their learning process. And that quality is determined by a set of learnable skills and behaviors that can be cultivated over time.

The Meta-Skill of Learning

I like to think of learning how to learn as a "meta-skill" – a higher-order ability that boosts your performance in every other area. And like any skill, it can be broken down into constituent parts and systematically trained.

One key component is what psychologist Carol Dweck calls a "growth mindset" – a fundamental belief that your abilities are malleable and can be expanded through effort. Those with a growth mindset view challenges and failures as opportunities for growth, rather than threats to their identity or evidence of their limitations.

Cultivating a growth mindset has been shown to have powerful effects on learning outcomes. In one study by Dweck and her colleagues, 7th grade students who were taught about the growth mindset and the malleability of intelligence went on to achieve significantly higher grades than their peers in a single semester.

Another essential meta-skill is what author Cal Newport calls "deep work" – the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. In an age of constant digital interruption, the ability to sustain unbroken concentration is becoming increasingly rare and valuable.

Research shows that we spend an average of only 1 minute and 15 seconds on a task before being interrupted, and it takes an average of 25 minutes to return to the original task after an interruption. This state of perpetual distraction is kryptonite for learning hard things, which requires deep, persistent engagement with the material.

Strategies for Rapid Unstructured Learning

So what does this actually look like in practice? How can we cultivate these meta-skills and accelerate our learning velocity in unstructured domains? Here are a few key strategies I‘ve honed over years of wrestling with hard problems in software engineering:

1. Embrace the Struggle

Learning hard things is inherently uncomfortable. It‘s a state of constant friction between what you currently understand and what you‘re trying to assimilate. The faster you‘re learning, the more intense that friction becomes.

Many people instinctively recoil from this discomfort, seeing it as a sign that they‘re not "getting it" or that they‘re not smart enough. They gravitate towards easier, more familiar challenges that allow them to stay squarely within their comfort zone.

But the magic only happens when you‘re stretching beyond the boundaries of your current ability. That place of struggle and slight overwhelm is where real growth occurs. So instead of avoiding that friction, lean into it. Embrace the struggle. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

2. Dive Below the Surface

It‘s easy to settle for a shallow, surface-level understanding of complex topics. You read a few articles, grasp the basic concepts, and feel like you‘ve got a decent handle on things. But true mastery requires a much deeper level of engagement.

You have to follow your curiosity down the rabbit hole, exploring the nuances, edge cases, and underlying primitives of the subject. You have to get your hands dirty with the details, experimenting and testing your understanding through application.

One technique I‘ve found invaluable is what I call "breadth-first, depth-later" learning. Start by getting a high-level overview of the key concepts and components, sketching the rough boundaries of the knowledge domain. Then, progressively dive deeper into each area, moving from general to specific understanding over time.

3. Create Structure Through Explanation

One of the biggest challenges of unstructured learning is the lack of clear checkpoints and assessments to gauge your progress. It‘s easy to spin your wheels for weeks or months without a clear sense of whether you‘re actually getting closer to mastery.

I‘ve found that one of the best ways to create structure and rigor in your learning is to constantly explain what you‘re learning to others. This could take the form of blog posts, tutorials, talks, or even just informal conversations with colleagues and friends.

The act of explaining forces you to crystallize your understanding, highlight gaps in your knowledge, and think through the implications and applications of the concepts. It surfaces questions and misconceptions that you didn‘t even know you had, creating a feedback loop that propels your learning forward.

The Competitive Advantage of Unstructured Learning

In a world where the pace of change is perpetually accelerating, the ability to rapidly learn in unstructured environments is becoming an immense competitive advantage. The skills and knowledge that are valuable today will be obsolete in a few years, and those who are most adaptable will be best positioned to thrive.

Unstructured learners are not only better equipped to keep pace with change, but to drive it. They are the ones pushing the boundaries of what‘s possible, forging into the unknown and mapping new territory. They are the innovators and disruptors, the creators and inventors.

In the field of software engineering, this has never been more true. The landscape is constantly evolving, with new technologies, frameworks, and paradigms emerging on a regular basis. Those who are most successful are not necessarily the ones with the deepest expertise in any particular tool or language, but rather those who can quickly adapt and assimilate new knowledge.

And this is not unique to software engineering – it‘s a meta-skill that is valuable in any field. Whether you‘re a marketer, designer, entrepreneur, or scientist, the ability to learn quickly and deeply in unstructured domains is a superpower that will serve you well throughout your career.

Embracing the Challenge

Learning hard things is, well, hard. It‘s a messy, non-linear, often frustrating process that requires a great deal of patience, persistence, and intellectual humility. There are no shortcuts or silver bullets, no way to download knowledge directly into your brain Matrix-style.

But that‘s precisely what makes it so rewarding. The struggle is what makes the victory worthwhile. The friction is what polishes the stone. And the discomfort is what signals that you‘re growing.

So embrace the challenge. Cultivate a love for the process, not just the outcomes. And remember that every expert was once a beginner, fumbling their way through the darkness. The only way to get to the other side is straight through the heart of the struggle.

As the famous physicist Richard Feynman once said: "I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." We are all born into ignorance, but we have the power to chip away at it, bit by bit, through the noble pursuit of learning. May you chip away at yours with every ounce of tenacity and curiosity you can muster.