This is one topic I’ve been researching and experimenting with for the past five years, ever since I became a software engineer. Although i’m someone who loves to take my time to learn and understand deeply. But unfortunately, my field has taught me some harsh truths I had to learn the hard way through trial and error which almost made me loose it.

Loosing IT

  1. Business is all about making profit, and management wants solutions as soon as yesterday and they will micromanage and frustrate the soul right out your body if you don’t deliver.
  2. Information and technology evolves at a rapid pace, and your ability to grasp new concepts quickly and execute ASAP to make an impact is a critical skill if you ever plan to survive in a highly competitive industry.
  3. The way you were taught to learn in school just doesn’t cut it in this fast-paced, cutthroat and highly competitive job market you’ve found yourself in.

I’ll be diving into the types of learning and techniques that will help you learn effectively and efficiently. First, let’s talk about the learning process taught in schools and why they’re in the wrong order.

  • Traditional Learning
  • Learning by Doing
  • Learning by Priority

🏫🗂️🕰️ Traditional Learning

This is the classic "sit in a classroom, follow a Course Outline | Syllabus or Roadmap for 4-6 years" situation. Hopefully, it’s not 10 years in your country! While this approach works well for learning core concepts and fundamentals deeply, it’s pretty ineffective in the real world. Why? Because your brain is designed to filter out what’s not important, which means you’re definitely going to forget everything you learned in Year 1 once you hit Year 2. Lol, and let’s not even talk about what happens by your final year. Let’s face it: your brain has more pressing things to focus on, like BILLS 😭 and life issues.

👷‍♀️🧪💥 Learning by Doing
Yipee! You’ve just graduated with your certificate, feeling like you can conquer every obstacle in your path until life hits you with the Sh🔥ryuken!

  • Recruiters asking for 7 years of experience for an entry-level role 😭😭
  • Endless applications with a whole lot of “Unfortunatelies” (Awwwn! You thought one or two applications would do the trick? Psyche! 🤪).

But finally, after what feels like forever, you land a job (Hopefully your boss ain’t the Wicked Witch of Beverly Hill). Now the real learning begins, the good ol’ learning by doing, aka on-the-job learning. This is where someone more experienced steps in to guide you. They point out your mistakes, you take notes, and you gradually start to level up.

Which brings us to the next learning process…

🚨🥵🎯 Learning by Priority

This is the part where it hits you: Uhhhm! I really don’t know as much as I think I did. So, you reflect on the notes you’ve taken, do some research, and start filling in the gaps.
After doing this over and over again, somewhere between 1 to 3 years in, you suddenly become the go-to guy or gal for the job.

🧠💡 But actually… the right order of learning looks a little different.

We always think it starts with traditional learning, but in reality, it goes more like this:

  • Learning by Doing – You dive in headfirst, make mistakes, and learn on the fly.
  • Learning by Priority – You realize what you don’t know and start bridging knowledge gaps.
  • Traditional Learning – Now you take the time to go deeper and truly understand the why behind what you’ve been doing.

So just to give you an example to solidify what I’m saying…

Let’s say you are studying for an exam and you have 3 hours of free time each day. Here’s how you should apply this learning order:

  • Learning by Doing – 1hr:30mins: You would start with practice questions, simulate exam conditions, and grade yourself. This reveals the gaps in your knowledge.
  • Learning by Priority – 1hr: Then, you would go back to your study materials and read specifically on the topics where you struggled.
  • Traditional Learning – 30mins: Finally, you would take your time going through the material chapter by chapter, to gain deeper understanding.

🎯 The fun part is? This system scales to any goal you want to achieve, not just exams.

For example, imagine you just stepped into your first leadership role (like ever, like ever ever):

You jump in and figure things out as you go (Learning by Doing). Over time, you spot your weaknesses and take note. Then, you look for books or resources that address those specific challenges (Learning by Priority) and just as important as any, you carve out time (30 minutes a day) to read those leadership books chapter by chapter for in-depth understanding and long-term growth (Traditional Learning). 😉

Now, what this does is it frees you from the mindset of "I have to know it all or be perfect before I can make an impact" which in itself, is a trap.

You know… like the classic “I need to wait 365 days to make a decision because it’s the end of the year and I’m all hyped up” move. → New Year, New Me 🤦‍♂️

🎉 Drum roll, please...
🥁 And the Best Procrastinator Award goes to... Y🤡U!

Sooooo… on to the next section: studying techniques, which I’ll be listing in this order:

Todo List → Eisenhower Matrix → Paretho Principle → Eat That Frog → Pomodoro → Delibrate Practice → Feyman Technique → Spaced Repetition → The Feedback Loop

  • Todo List - All tasks must relocate from your head to paper (H1-B Style) as you can’t always trust your brain to remember everything
  • Eisenhower Matrix
    • Urgent & Important = Prioritize
    • Not Urgent but important = Schedule
    • Urgent but not important = Delegate
    • Not urgent or important = Eliminate
  • Pareto Principle - The 80/20 Rule! - 80% of results come from 20% of the efforts.
  • Eat That Frog – Tackle the most important (and often dreadful) task first, while your energy is at its peak.
  • Pomodoro Technique – Work in focused sessions while eliminating distractions, and take breaks when you're done to cool off.
  • Deliberate Practice – “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” — Bruce Lee
  • Feyman Technique - if you can’t teach it to 5-year-old, then you probably don't understand it as well as you think you do.
  • Spaced Repetition - The more you try to recall something from memory at spaced intervals, the more it sticks for good. (Anki, Notion, and others are great tools for this!)
  • The Feedback Loop – This isn’t really a study technique, but more of a system of testing what works and what doesn’t, so you keep twerking, sorry tweaking things until you figure out what works best for you. Although there is one technique I could have added to the list, but I’ve been able to do without it and still make an impact. That would be Mind Mapping. If you’re a die-hard fan of this technique, feel free to add it to the list. The more, the merrier!

Now, to bring it to life with an example by putting it all together… Let’s say you have an exam in the next 3 months and have only 3 hours to spare daily. This is how you should go about it. But First! I’ll leave you with a quote from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:

"If I had seven days to cut down a forest, I’d spend most of it sharpening my tools."

Simply put, the time spent preparing isn’t time wasted, but time well invested. #preach!

🧠 Study Game Plan (3 Hours Daily for 3 Months)

  1. Preparation
    • Research & gather study materials that best fit your learning style (books, audio, video… whatever works for you).
    • List all study materials on a to-do list.
    • Filter out what’s not needed and prioritize what’s essential using the Eisenhower Matrix.

  2. Learning by Doing – 1hr 30mins

    • Practice with past questions or a study bank under exam time constraints.

    • Grade yourself.

      After a few sessions, you’ll notice certain topics keep popping up, this is called pattern recognition. It reveals the topics that are most likely to appear in the exam. Yep!, that’s the Pareto Principle in action.

      Jot down these recurring topics, these are your knowledge gaps and your research guide.

  3. Learning by Priority – 1hr

    • Now that you’ve identified your high-priority topics, start with the hardest one when your energy is at its peak (well-rested, well-fed & hydrated) → Eat That Frog.

    • Use focused study-play sessions with zero distractions → Pomodoro Technique.

      For example:

      • 30 mins focus / 5 mins break
      • OR 1 hr focus / 10 mins break

       
      NB: Your break can be anything you genuinely enjoy.

      For me? Some mad afrobeats🔥music, watching comedy skits on TikTok, or a quick match in Call of Duty Mobile.

      PS: I’m the best sniper alive, you won’t even see it coming. you just gonna black out 🎯💀

      So, figure out what works for you, and stick to it.
       

    • Be intentional with what you’re studying, focus on what you want to understand, not just skim. → Deliberate Practice.

      Pro Tip: Spar with 🥷 GPT Sensei. Ask questions. Explain answers. Challenge your understanding. You’ll retain more that way.

    • Think you finally understand Quantum Computing? Cool. Now… explain it to a 5-year-old without sounding like an evil Harvard scientist. → Feynman Technique
      Yup! you’re about to find out you might not know it as well as you thought. Simplifying complex concepts enforces deep understanding.

    • Once you’ve understood the concept, create a Q&A model using tools like Notion or Anki and start testing yourself over time → Spaced Repetition.

    • Spaced Repetition Tools

  4. Traditional Learning - 30mins

    Now this is where you take your time and walk through each chapter | section | module to gain a deeper understanding of the material. No rush!

    So why do you need this?

    Well… sometimes, the examiner doesn’t pull questions from the past, they pull 'em from the future! - Uhhh! Ahhh! 😱

    That’s when you realize surface-level knowledge won’t cut it. You need true, in-depth understanding to solve complex problems.

Closing Remark: Traditional learning had us believing we need to know it all before we do anything significant.

Real life taught me otherwise:

→ Learn by doing - Get those squeaky-clean hands dirty.

→ Focus on what matters - The obstacle keeping you from moving forward is your top priority to solve.

→ Deepen your Knowledge - Mastery demands depth, and it takes time. But depth lets you spot hidden patterns, connect the dots, and give life to new ideas.

Now, combine that mindset with tools like Pomodoro, Eisenhower Matrix, Spaced Repetition, and others as i've listed...

You’re not just learning, you’re evolving.

If you found this article helpful, feel free to connect with me → LinkedIn.

Until we meet again Tudulus Wishes! 🤪