Thread by @GiordMarco96

One of my favorite topics is learning. This is giving me several benefits during my #SEO career.

How can we learn faster and better?

This thread will clarify some concepts and teach you that steady progress > perfection. 🧵

Let's start by saying that you don't need to learn everything.

Learning things by heart is overrated in the digital era, you have a PC for that stuff.

Don't waste your time with the useless details.

Some of you may be shocked, but you don't really need to learn all the human knowledge.

This is what schools unsuccessfully teach, learn by heart and forget logic.

This is the most toxic argument you can ever make.

To detox from the wrong mindset, you should start to learn by yourself.

Start from something that you always wanted to learn and start practicing.

It doesn't matter if you have problems at first, just do it.

There is a reason for that.

By teaching yourself discipline you train your body and mind to tolerate these types of activities.

It gets natural after some months and you will be always looking for new information to absorb.

You don't want to have tons of information tho.

What you care about is retaining important information and being able to recall what can be helpful.

Logic helps a lot in recalling concepts and is one of your best friends. You cannot possibly recall entire lines of code or directives.

Code should not be learned by heart.

Create quick mind maps (yeah, like topical maps) for what you have to learn.

Decompose a topic into small pieces and start learning. You'll notice there are more important pieces, focus on them.

You don't need to study all the components.

I have some super stupid examples.

When I was learning Calculus by myself, I noticed that I didn't need concepts like Taylor Series or Fourier Series.

I skipped them altogether to save time and focus on derivatives and integrals.

And again, I just studied some key parts.

Another example is as follows.

When studying R and #Python I focused on functional programming and not OOP. Why should I learn something less related first?

My goal is data analysis and building models, OOP comes way later if you are a beginner.

Focus on what adds value right away, if possible. You start seeing some results and you get more motivation to study.

You can apply the same concept to languages by first learning the most used words.

Recall that the important part here is to reap the benefits.

Don't be that folk who thinks that you don't need X to succeed.

Of course, you can be fine w/o a lot of skills in the SEO world.

But why deprive yourself of learning modern skills?

Just because some random guy on the Internet said that?

Learn first important SEO basic skills and some business.

Then specialize in something very specific and pick your path.

Whatever you like, there is a job demand for everything, I don't think that picking Technical SEO over content is a drama (it's not).

Learn to skim words and avoid going back to read again. Fight the urge to backtrack and just go ahead.

The goal here is to make your brain used to reading information w/o backtracking and forcing retention.

As said before, we care about efficiency and the final output.

That's why I am growing tired of all this memory obsession.

We need more logic rather than memory. The latter is harder to exploit in the long term and can be mindless.

You can learn entire poems and be able to miss the meaning.

Plus, your brain cannot learn the answer for every possible scenario out there.

Your logic can adapt and find a solution! That is the main difference, use logic, please.

Do you think I recall all the ranking factors? Heck no, it's not my grocery list.

In SEO there is an obsession with finding or learning ranking factors.

A good methodology solves this issue as you don't need to worry about some details at a granular level.

E.g. a good content template is already compliant with what Google wants to see

Don't fixate on the means, focus on the final result.

You achieve the goal by knowing or planning the steps and by being able to adapt to changes.

The world is not static.

Use Notion or whatever you like to store your ideas.

Use machines as your memory but don't rely on them for all of your tasks!

Develop your brain muscles and your gut as well.

Read every day.

"But dude I don't have the time to read 5 articles per day as you suggest"

You do have the time, learn to skim and summarize the text.

Everything will be way easier!

My advice is indeed to read 5-10 articles per day on a topic.

Active reading, not passive! You should understand what the source is saying and absorb useful information.

Bookmark the most important articles for future reference.

Practice is the real turning point. Everyone can know the information but how many can make it actionable?

Some concepts may seem abstract at first because they require a lot of hands-on experience to be useful.

Perfection is almost impossible to achieve and is a huge waste of time.

Steady progress is way better and more entertaining. There is no reason to know every small detail of something if there is no practical application.

Time is limited and you have to save it as possible.

We are quite lucky to live in the digital era because you can store information on machines.

Think of them as your secondary memory and brain. You should take decisions tho, machines are just helpers.

You are in charge of saying the final word.

The main takeaways here are:

- Don't learn useless details
- Discipline > rush
- Read, read, read
- Innovate and learn modern skills
- Have a solid foundation

Some of you have a solid academic basis, others don't.

It doesn't matter at all as long as you practice and bring results.

The important is being consistent and being willing to improve.

And the best way to learn is...

Just starting, a lot of people never start or just quit.

This is not the correct mindset and it won't get you far.

You have to insist and persist continuously until you reach the peak.

A lot of people will be skeptical and won't support you.

If what you are doing is totally legitimate, ignore them.

Really, it's your journey, you decide how to model it.

There are infinite variables when learning, you can't control them all.

You can influence some of them, so focus on yourself.

It takes time to master something but it's definitely worth it.

Many people forget the amount of work they put into something and think everything is simple.

Simplifying a process means you have a good degree of confidence!

How can you simplify something you don't know?

Learning w/o practice is useless. Do both theory and practice and teach/write what you learned.

This helps retention and gives you time to solidify concepts.

Learning can be a collaborative effort rather than your own struggle.

My final advice is to follow your path because only you know what you want.

You can read and practice all day to conclude that you don't like what you do.

That's why being honest w/ yourself is the most important trait!

Follow me for threads, tips and case studies (coming soon) about SEO, content and #Python/data.

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