How hard could it be? Is there a thought more infamous? More foolhardy? I should know better by now: I can't count how many times I've asked myself this rhetorical question and then been bludgeoned by the cold reality. And yet—and I'm not sure what this says about me—I keep having it, and keep getting … Continue reading On the pain of learning from knowing nothing
Tag: learning
On looking at every button
During a training earlier today, several colleagues were shocked at how much I know about InDesign. But it made perfect sense to me, because of something I did over a year ago: I went through every visible button in my InDesign workspace and figured out what they did. With one to three buttons a day, … Continue reading On looking at every button
On owning ignorance without the smirk
I’m not sure anyone enjoys admitting ignorance. I say this after a day of doing it—having attempted the only formal videography of my life. (I refuse to count the silly videos made with friends in college.) It wasn’t supposed to be me behind the camera, fiddling with focus and adjusting the composition, but there I … Continue reading On owning ignorance without the smirk
On 18 things I learned building a deck over the past 11 days
Use leverage whenever possible. Walk away before you get frustrated. You can use your drill chuck to pull off stripped screws. I need to buy a crowbar. Put tools back in the same place once you’re done with them. (Otherwise you waste hours of walking around grumbling over the whereabouts of the orbital sander.) Impact … Continue reading On 18 things I learned building a deck over the past 11 days
On weather observations
A few months ago, I watched through several hours of an EdX course on the weather. The weather has fascinated me for years now—so much so that I've read through an entire college-level weather textbook twice, not to mention countless other books on the topic. But I still felt that understanding of the topic eluded … Continue reading On weather observations
On unlearning and my first InDesign experience
Learning is hard; unlearning is harder. As I've paged through Real World Adobe InDesign CC, I've had a painful realization: I need to unlearn lots of what I thought I knew. The specifics are both boring and embarrassing, so I'll leave them aside. What I will speak to is one (now evident) downside of my … Continue reading On unlearning and my first InDesign experience
On thinking (wrongly) that there was no more for me to learn about InDesign
On a whim, I picked up Real World Adobe InDesign CC at the library a few months ago. It turns out that the bulky 2013 publication—it's over a decade old!—was not in high demand in the Jeffco Public Library system. It sat, unread, for many weeks on my kitchen counter, literally gathering dust as the … Continue reading On thinking (wrongly) that there was no more for me to learn about InDesign
On frequency illusion
I was in college when I first heard the name: Baader-Meinhof. And then—in totally appropriate fashion—I started seeing the name everywhere. The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, also known as frequency illusion, is when you encounter something for the first time and then proceed to notice it everywhere (where, of course, it already was to begin with). “Baader-Meinhof”—to … Continue reading On frequency illusion
Adapting “watch one, do one, teach one” for my career
Recently, I learned about a classic teaching strategy in the world of medical education: watch one, do one, teach one. Usually (and worryingly?) applied to surgeries, the premise is that the best way to learn a new surgical technique or method is to watch someone else do it, then do it yourself, and then, finally, … Continue reading Adapting “watch one, do one, teach one” for my career
Taylor Coe 