In his latest book, The 46 Rules of Genius: An Innovator’s Guide to Creativity, Marty Neumeier observes, “Teaching yourself is called autodidacticism. It requires that you develop your own theory of learning, a personal framework for acquiring new knowledge. While every person’s framework is different, here are ten principles you can use to construct it,” accompanied by my annotations:

1. Learn by doing: Still the most effective way, especially “trial by error”
2. Find worthy work: What we do and how well we do it reveal our core values.
3. Harness habits: Repetition strengthens both good and bad habits.
4. Focus on goals: True, but also keep feet planted firmly on the ground.
5. Cultivate memory: The brain is a muscle in need of constant, rigorous exercise.
6. Increase sensitivity: Listen and observe more…speak less.
7. Stretch boundaries: What we’ve done before and can do now are less than 20% of what we could do.
8. Customize metaskills: We should strive to be our best selves; everyone else is taken. (Oscar Wilde)
9. Feed desire: But be careful what we wish for.
10. Confront fear: It is usually an imposter.

He discusses all this in the book (Pages 79-80) and thoroughly in an earlier book, Metaskills: Five Talents for the Robotic Age, published by New Riders/Peachpit/Pearson (2012).