Computer World

These are all common reactions to the overwhelming challenge of learning to use a personal computer. The volume of information, the pace of change and the intimidating technical language can make learning about computers seem like an unattainable and unrealistic goal. The first step on your path to learning about computers is to tune out all of the ridicule from your friends, forget your precocious eight-year-old niece’s computer skills and focus on yourself. You can do this by defining what success means to you. Do this by setting a few compelling and attainable goals that are relevant to you and assigning them realistic timelines. Make sure these goals are observable and measurable so that you know when you’ve achieved them and can celebrate your success.

Your first goal should be challenging, but not overwhelming. If you stay in your comfort zone, you won’t advance, but if you set goals you can’t achieve, you’ll quickly become discouraged. By achieving some success early on, you’ll be more motivated to challenge yourself to learn faster. This will also make learning about computers fun, which will keep your motivation at a high level.

If you’ve learned how to launch your three favorite programs, you might realize that you really want or need to master one of those programs. If your goal was to navigate to some free computer learning courses, you might soon realize that you need to understand the features and functionality of a specific site. While it’s tempting at this point to dive in and learn all there is to know, resist that temptation, or you’ll risk becoming overwhelmed. Remember to read sections of the web site that will teach you how to use the site properly. You can often find these under sections like FAQs, How it Works and Getting Started.

To keep your learning on track, identify your ultimate goal and then break that down into smaller steps and goals to get you there. Once you’ve broken down your end goal into a collection of smaller, bite-size chunks of skills to learn, make sure you assign dates to each of them so that you have a timeline with which to work. Again, it’s important to challenge yourself, but don’t set timelines that are so aggressive that th. Once you know all the things that you need to learn and by when, it’s simply a matter of finding the resources for learning about computers by exploring the Internet, bookstores, libraries and classroom options, such as local community colleges. There are also several free computer learning courses online that will get you started in the right direction.

Most of these courses allow you to learn at your own pace and will give you a great start to learning computers with little or no financial obligation. With a little research, you can find a reputable online computer learning courses, and be on your way to materializing your goals for learning about computers in no time.