Second, identify the aspects of your subject matter that’ll help you the most in accomplishing what you’d like to achieve. For example, suppose you’d like to learn to play the guitar. If you’re mainly interested in playing simple songs, you’d do well to focus on chord construction. On the other hand, if you’d like to play like Eddie Van Halen, you should focus on scales, modes, and dexterity exercises. Third, ignore the rest.

