A lot of people are scared of using things they don’t understand. Their fear comes from not understanding what they are using. And since they don’t want to take the time to understand something complex; they live in fear of what they don’t know.
I’ve been giving a lot of consideration to how to help people, and one of the things I can contribute to others is my skills and knowledge in how to use a computer without pulling your hair out every few days.
That said, some of the basics are to be covered. This is by no means a complete guide, it is only a starting point to build skills to other skills that will guide you through the process.
READ THE SCREEN
When using a computer, the simpleist advice is what my dad told me twenty years ago. “Read The Screen” If you read what the screen says and then do the next step, this solves knowing how to use the computer over 70% of the situations you will encounter.
Want to know where to save that file? Read the screen. Most of the situations most people have to deal with can be solved by reading the screen. Not sure what something does? Read Up!
Search For Answers
Its true, most all the answers you could ever want, likely have a YouTube video made to show you how to do it. Not sure what something does, or how to make it work? Search for it. The answers are out there. Even a computer user like myself, I find most of the answers to problems I have because someone else had the same issue.
Keep Trying To Learn
Always keep trying to learn something new. It takes a certain amount of curiosity to learn how something completely complex works and understanding it. However, I can tell you this; once you master it and really understand it, you will know it inside and out.
Only through sheer bloody mindlessness can one keep trying to learn how it all works. It takes time. Maybe six weeks, to really learn the details of how this stuff works. You have to teach yourself how it works, because most people aren’t going to take the time to teach you how to do it.
Have hope. You can teach yourself how to make it work. Then when you learn it, you will really know it and understand it. That has its own special reward built into it. So give it a shot. Teach yourself. It takes time; and if you work at it a little bit everyday; in no time you will have it down.
Don’t Repeat The Same Mistake 10000 Times
If doing something doesn’t give you the result you want, find out why! It goes to say that if you do the same thing over and over again and it doesn’t give you the result you want; you are doing it wrong.
Search for what you want to do and learn how to do it right.
You have to use common sense. Most things are designed to be easy; under most situations most things are very simple to do. So unless you are doing something stupid, it shouldn’t be difficult to do.
If you are trying to do something stupid, ask yourself if there is a better way to do it? You have to always be thinking about what you are doing. Please don’t be drinking booze while trying to learn how to use a computer. It doesn’t work well in that situation.
Know What You Want To Do
If you know what you want to do with something, then finding the answer is very simple. If you don’t know what something is called, then you have to search for basic answers that answer the question. Then return to the original problem with the understanding of what you want to do once you know what its all called.
If you know what you want to do, everything else is simple. It takes time to learn new stuff. But its all easy when you build skills upon skills and have the experience of having done the work yourself.
Conclusion
Therefore in conclusion, you can learn how to do this stuff on your own. If you have the time to learn it yourself. It might take six weeks, it could take six months. Knowing when to call a professional is a matter of how much time you have to learn it and what your budget is. If you have zero budget, go back through; READ THE SCREEN, Search for answers. Keep Trying To Learn, and Don’t Make the same mistakes 10000 times in a row.
If you know what you want to do, it helps a lot. Trying new stuff out is a good idea. The real thing you want to avoid is deleting files, and messing around with files you don’t know what they do in the core of the operating system. Everything in your Documents folder is yours to play with though. Have fun!
Photo Credit: Photo by Courtney Corlew on Unsplash
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