My Generative AI Learning Missteps That Cost My Time

Learn smarter, not harder

In the current landscape, Generative AI has become a part of our everyday life. Or at least it has changed some portions of our work activity.

I can’t imagine my life now without the presence of Generative AI. I use the GPT model to structure my activity and question searching; I use ideogram to generate the image above, SDXL to automate my TeePublic POD business, and many more.

The point is that Generative AI is here to stay and will help your work if you use it correctly.

However, I had many missteps when I started learning Generative AI. Even now, I feel there is still something I could improve. I want to share my thoughts in the current newsletter to enhance our learning experience. It’s not so much about the technical; I want to share more about my experience.

Here are some mistakes that I made.

Not Setting Clear Goals

What’s your target for learning Generative AI? Is it to use the result in your work? Or do you want to develop your tool? Or do you want to improve your financial situation with Generative AI?

We want to learn these new, exciting tools for countless reasons, and there could be more than one reason. But it’s better to have a clear goal when learning new things.

If I admit, the first time I started learning about Generative AI was to follow the trends. Like the others, I felt like missing out (FOMO) if I didn’t know what is and how to use these tools.

Though it means that I don’t have a clear reason to learn them at first, I try to navigate the field randomly. I understand the area and can get some results, but I don’t know what to do with this knowledge.

Because I don’t have any clear goals that I want to achieve during my learning times, I don’t accomplish anything meaningful. I ended up having an on-off relationship with the Generative AI.

But after a few deep thoughts and reading various articles regarding Generative AI applications, I came back with a game plan.

I started to put a big goal in my Generative AI learning: Improve My Financial Situation with Generative AI. Yes, IMO money is still a good goal to achieve.

With the goal present, I could break down the activity I need to achieve this goal. Whenever I get sidetracked, I can return to my goal of learning Generative AI.

Insufficient Knowledge of Technical Terms

Generative AI isn’t a new field, as it already exists before any of the hype. However, we humans are sometimes not the most patient creatures. We want to use the stuff without properly understanding how it works.

To be fair, we can use Generative AI tools without much knowledge of the technical terms. You can use the ChatGPT webpage without knowing what Token, Embedding, Vector Database, Hallucination, etc. It’s depending on what your goal is.

But, one of my mistakes when learning Generative AI is rushing to learn the hard coding, not knowing what these technical terms are.

While it works, I am not sure why things happen. We need to understand the basics to build and structure something. So, my learning is hindered because I want to do something advanced without knowing the basics.

That’s why I take a step back to taking many courses and learning reading material to start learning things from the basics. Understanding the terms helped my learning journey tremendously.

Poor Time Management

I work 9-5; I have my freelance writing work, I want to start my startup, I want to hang out with friends, I write my newsletter, I want to begin my courses, I want to be active in my organization, I want to create my YouTube channel, I begin my Podcast, I involved in social media.

See how many things I want and what I have done. It seems so much. Then, I want to start learning Generative AI. Do I even have time? I thought, of course, I have time; begin learning them.

What happens next? I get burned out for months.

I should already know that would happen, but I keep pursuing and juggling everything. But it’s freaking out me, and everything is just falling apart.

That’s why I started prioritization after recovery. I realize I must cut down on things or prioritize something else first rather than working on everything simultaneously.

Our time is limited, but too many multi-tasking things lead to failure.

Yes, we can automate things, but not everything can be automated. I learned Generative AI to start automating some things, so it’s one of the priorities as well.

So, I started to structure my time properly and not push myself. Learning Generative AI becomes easier after I can dedicate my time to only learning instead of doing many things simultaneously.

I haven’t been involved with the Community

Generative AI community is big in the social media. Whether it is LinkedIn or Twitter, there are lot of learning materials everywhere.

I am always big about community as I love to involve with the community activity and giving things to the public.

But, with the three points above happening, I feel overwhelemed previously and this make it hard to involved with the new community.

This is especially a fault because many golden egg in the Generative AI is coming from the community. It’s the place that would launch our career.

I realize my mistake and that’s why I start try to cleaning up my activity and try to include Generative AI community in my schedule.

Learning by ourselves is fine, but the community would certainly help learning things easier; especially if it’s about Generative AI.

Conclusion

Learning new things could be hard, and it certainly applied to the Generative AI as well. Here is my personal experience on my missteps, including:

1. Not Setting Clear Goals

2. Insufficient Knowledge of Technical Terms

3. Poor Time Management

4. Haven’t been involved with the Community

That’s all for now. I hope it helpful for you.

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