Tips for Teaching Yourself Tech

Technology is an essential part of life. As such, knowing how to use it is a skill people in administrative jobs must have if they want to be successful in their careers. Learning new technology, however, can be challenging—especially since it is constantly changing. Here are a few tech tips for teaching yourself how to use technology, which can help you stay ahead of the curve.

Start with individual tasks: When learning new technology, most people start by reading the manual or a book about it. The trouble with this technique is that it can be difficult to absorb the information, particularly if there are few real-world applications for it. A better way would be to learn how to use the technology to solve a specific problem. For example, you could focus on understanding how to use the calendar function on your cell phone to keep track of appointments. When learning new technology, this method makes it easier to retain and recall what you have learned.

Tap into available resources: After studying the basics of the technology, use additional training resources to delve deeper into it. You can get guidance from a book, a blog, a YouTube training series, or a webinar. As noted before, you'll get more out of the lessons if you can tie them to solving specific problems. Try to obtain resources you can reference later if you need to refresh your knowledge about a particular process or function. Another option is to keep a notebook of the things you have learned about the technology. Some people find that rewriting the information they learned in their own words helps them retain it better. Search engines are a great way to find resources that can help you with learning new technology.

Practice makes perfect: One of the best tech tips for learning new technology is to use it at every opportunity. If you are learning a computer program, search for practice problems or workbooks that present scenarios for you to solve using the technology you are learning. This can help solidify your knowledge about the program as well as open the door to other areas you can study. If you're learning about a piece of hardware, like a cell phone, walk through the instructions several times. Going back to the calendar example, you could practice making appointments for different days until you are comfortable enough with the technology to use it in your administrative job.

Learning new technology can be challenging. However, once you master the skill of teaching yourself how to use tech, you can use it to learn an assortment of useful programs and gadgets that can help you in your career.

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