A lot of folks never really learned to effectively study over the course of weeks or months. One of the keys I've learned is to give yourself enough time to soak in new concepts and for practice to crystallize in your mind. I used to get frustrated at this process, but finally in my 40s I've learned to embrace how my brain and body learn new skills.

I've recently started a new job, and I've been thrown a ton of materials and systems to study. Lots of new terms, systems, etc., and only vague ideas of where everything fits in. So here's my rough process if I'm handed a product spec for a system I'm going to be building / working on:

- Skim the entirety of whatever document / deck / codebase you've been given. Make a couple notes about things you didn't understand, and plan to look into. Maybe a couple key concepts. Not too much. You're just dipping your toes. It's going to be really annoying and frustrating and you're going to want to quit. That's OK - your brain / body are telling you you're working hard and expending a lot of energy. Think of it like lifting mental weights - it's meant to be hard work.

- Come back in a couple days and read it again, after you've done this process with a bunch of other things. You might realize this document has answers to questions you had about other things! You're just starting to make connections.

- Make yourself a reminder to check back in another week, and in the mean time go and ask your questions to the document author, your manager, your team, etc.

- By the next week, you probably understand what's going on enough to write a 1-pager for your plans; give it another week and you should be able to right a proper tech design.