The Fastest Way to Learn

I’ve always had an interest in game development, but never got around to learning it.

I wrote my first line of HTML nearly 8 years ago but didn’t learn much of anything until 4 years later.

The amount of free information on YouTube and the rest of the information makes the barrier to entry to any new skill lower than ever.

It also makes it too easy to “feel” like you’re learning, but not actually make any progress.

My first 4 years of learning to code were mostly me following along with YouTube videos or Udemy courses.

In that time I made 3 projects - a quiz app, todo list, and a personal website.

None of these were difficult or pushed me to try something I hadn’t done before.

The best (and fastest) process I’ve found to learn a new skill is:

• watch a “crash course” to get familiar with the basics
• pick a small-scoped project I want to build
• start working on it, using Google/YouTube/AI as I go to add what I need

I started to learn Unreal Engine 3 months ago when I took a Game Development course as one of my final year Computer Science classes.

This class was set up to spend a few weeks to teach us about the Unreal editor and some basic things we could do in it.

After this we were off on our own to start working on a game for the class.

Just a few weeks ago I started working on my first indie horror game a couple hours a day, building out systems for movement, driving, interacting with items, etc.

This alone has taught me a ton about Unreal and how to approach problems that come up.

If you’ve been meaning to learn a new skill, I hope you found this helpful.

The Ultimate M4 Max MacBook Pro Setup – Apps, Settings & Tips!

Every time I get a new MacBook I like to set it up fresh, and this video is the process I took to set up my M4 Mac for programming & content creation.

Things I’ve found interesting

links to valuable stuff I thought was worth sharing

Scott Galloway's Advice To Make Millions In Your 30s & 40s - I've never listened to much of Scott Galloway but I immediately bought his recent book after this podcast.

Lessons from working with 600+ YC startups | Gustaf Alströmer (Y Combinator, Airbnb) - An interesting podcast about the common reasons startups fail and how to build a great product.

N10 - A simple focus app that lets you set one task in a floating window. Every minute it pulses to remind you of what you meant to be working on. I love it.

Recut - I haven't used this app in a few months but I forgot how much time it saves. Dropping in your voiceovers it will quickly cut out the silence to lessen the amount of tedious editing I have to do.

Vibrancy Continued - A sick VSCode extension that gives your editor a transparent/glassmorphic effect.

Have a great week.

Cole

P.S. If you found this letter valuable, please consider sharing it with a friend :)