Most of what you’re about to read may or may not come off as “common sense.” If you feel this way, then look at your life. Are you applying these steps to your life? Do you feel you need a set path for becoming a great designer? Then keep reading.

The rule of thumb has always been “practice makes perfect.” Then we’re told that we will never be “perfect,” but our imperfections are our true perfections – we just need to find a way to bring out our best.

Stage One: Unconscious Incompetence

Before a person begins to learn a new skill, whether it is design or mathematics, or really anything, they don’t realize that they really aren’t that great at it. I’m not going to elaborate too much on this step, mostly because the only way to get past this stage into the next is to realize one’s incompetence.

Stage Two: Conscious Incompetence

This is where the person at Stage One was hit by a jolt and realized that they really aren’t that great at this skill, and need to improve. So what can they do to improve?

• Practice! This seems like a no-brainer, but the more a person performs a skill or a set series of tasks, the better they get at them. For a designer, I would say practice making sites for mock clients, and for a developer I’d recommend creating applications for various things you might use during your daily life. In other disciplines, practicing for a while every day is always the best way.

• Look at what everyone else is doing. This is especially important for designers and developers. Young designers are often told to “copy” other designs; this isn’t necessarily a “bad” thing to do, as it takes on a form of practice. The more you make great designs, whether or not they are yours, the more natural great design will come to you. Developers would see this as taking other programs written by other people, and dissecting them; looking at how example code is written, and writing and rewriting it themselves. In other disciplines, taking lessons or looking at other examples is the way to go.
• Read books Books are great things. Not ebooks, and not online tutorials – actual books. Being able to highlight certain ideas helps the brain remember them (especially if you use more than one color of highlighter). If you don’t have the money to buy a full library of new books for every skill you wish to pick up, then definitely buy a spiral notebook and take notes. Read over your notes before each sitting, highlighting in different colors different terms and concepts and rules. Taking notes and making annotations and highlighting are proven methods for learning and remembering new things.

Stage Three: Conscious Competence

At this step, you aren’t quite there, but you’re beginning to really get the hang of your new skill. You have worked to improve this skill, and are consciously working on your performance. It’s not quite natural to you yet, but you still do a great job.

At this point, definitely keep working on the parts outlined in the list on Stage Two, but go beyond copying other people’s examples. In order to really get past this step into really knowing your new skill, you need to push the boundaries. How can you make this technique better? How can you improve this code or illustration here? Take more time on your practice examples or work, and push it to see how you can make it better. Remember that you can’t improve if you don’t challenge yourself!

Stage Four: Unconscious Competence

Your skill comes naturally at this point. Every time you do it, it seems almost effortless. You’re also able to integrate the skill you learned into other things; you apply the principals of good development or great design in what you do with your life (this really isn’t as crazy as it sounds).

This is the final stage, though remember that there are always ways in which to improve. Always keep looking for other points of view on any problem. There are always three or more sides to every coin!

Some Other Tips

• Get plenty of sleep. This is very important. Your memory retention decreases for every hour of sleep you lack. I always shoot for 8-10 hours of sleep at night; daytime sleep only counts for half! (That is, keep in mind that going to bed at three in the morning and waking up at noon is not restful sleep, and therefore does not count as nine hours of rest.)
• Read blogs. Often times, a blog will have recommendations to other texts or books for you to read. If they don’t, you can always get in touch with the blog’s writer through comments or email (if that is provided) requesting recommendations for further reading. Not only that, but they may offer new insights or perspectives, or may simplify an idea you are having a hard time – not to mention networking!
• Network with other people interested in your new skill. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with the blog; through reading blogs and forums, you can network with people interested in the same thing, and also grow off of their advice. Also, many people recommend that you partner with another person as interested as you are in a new skill. For example, people trying to exercise more are often urged to have an exercise partner; this allows them to make a new friend which keeps them motivated in their exercise program, and gives a person another person they can turn to while working on a difficult problem.

So, go forth, and learn new skills! This list is very generalized to match most disciplines, but I have found these steps to be an excellent program for learning new things.