Assess Your Current Skills & Identify Gaps

Every skill worth learning has dozens of micro-skills.

List the micro-skills. Figure out what you are good at, what you are bad at, and how you can learn to be better at each.

Decide what you want to learn, then break it down into smaller, manageable pieces. Identify the tools and skills behind each step.

For example, if you want to bake your own bread, the pieces would be making dough, letting it rise, kneading it, shaping it and putting it into a pan, and ...

• Consider your purpose for reading and what you need to be able to understand, know, or do after reading.
• Determine what you already know about the material you are to read.
• Give the text an initial glance, noting headings, diagrams, tables, pictures, bolded words, summaries, ...