I'll ignore formal education, because it's obvious how that works. I never got a college degree, just high school. I've learned everything else by doing.

I suppose it's about being curious, and falling into rabbit holes. Expanding knowledge for the sake of knowing more. Learning something new is so much easier with the internet. I'm old, and pre-internet, learning something new meant buying books, or going to the library, or learning from someone else directly. I learned MS-DOS from a thick book I bought.

If you only know the goal, you just need to search "How do I...". How do I make pizza or bread. How do I learn linux. How do I repair a fan. How does GPS work. How do bees navigate. Also, when you run across words you don't know, don't just skip over them, search the word, it's right there in front of you. My dad taught me this. He told me to read with a dictionary next to me, so I could look up words I didn't know. I still do that now.

Generally, I just dive in, and learn as I go. But, I also pick up knowledge of anything that interests me with no current need for it. I've learned a LOT about how houses are built from watching Perkins Brothers on YT. I'll probably never build a house, but I know in detail how it's done now. From that show, and other sources, I learned how important planning is. There's a point in the planning process where you just need to start actually building it. Money is the main driver, and people tend to do the bare minimum of planning so they can get started. That causes problems throughout the build.

Planning is the start, and it's relatively cheap. The further along the process you get to the final goal, the more expensive mistakes and changes are. If you're doing the job for a client, the most expensive mistake is the one the client catches at the end of the project, that you missed. Because, they lose trust in you.

As an example of learning, I recently refurbished a desk. I've known about applying laminates with contact cement generally for many years, I came across the technique and read about it out of curiosity, but never had a use for it. Actually, I first learned about contact cement when I was a teenager, and build a kayak out of plywood and canvas. Before I did the desk, I watched several videos and then bought exactly what I needed for the task and gave it a shot.

Several years ago, I dove into learning Blender. I did that because I needed/wanted it for a work project when I was a graphic designer. Previously, I had been using sketchup but I wanted something more robust. I followed some tutorials, then applied what I'd learned to my project, searching for solutions to specific issues as they arose. I enjoyed it, so I started using it for personal projects. If I hadn't enjoyed it, I would have only learned exactly what I needed to, and then left it. I know Blender pretty well now, at least the modeling and rendering parts.

Here's a table I designed in blender that I'll be building soon.

I've used blender to design houses in great detail that will never get built. I did it for fun.

A new product idea popped into my head, a "better mouse trap". I had the money, so I bought a 3D printer, assembled it, and used Blender to model the parts and made nearly-complete working prototypes. I've left the idea to rot, it hasn't gone anywhere yet, but I have a 3D printer, and I know how to use it now.

Skills or subjects?

Learning topics like math or history, just dive into things you may not be ready for and just take it slow, looking up things you don't know as you encounter them.

For skills, it might help to get a teacher for more physical things, like athletics or music, so you don't hurt yourself. For arts, unless you need a studio, just try it and follow YouTube tutorials as you go.

Independent learning will almost always be slower than a teacher, but at least you'll make progress.

Start and then never finish thousands of things. Then youll at least be well rounded.

Follow the dopamine. Go on a Wikipedia binge and don’t feel bad about it because at least it’s better than TikTok. Watch educational YouTube videos, and when you get 10 seconds into it and think “this guys an idiot” you just keep making fun of him and fact-checking stuff.

First, get a surface level understanding so that you know enough about it to actually do proper research. If it really really piques my interest, the rest of the path will form naturally

All different ways.

I recently wanted to learn beading so I got a friend to teach me and found a free project through a local community center. Then I bought supplies to keep going using free instructions I found online.

When I learned foraging I was working in the woods, so I bought some books on native plants to identify things throughout the day, or bring back plants and mushrooms to identify later. I slowly learned about all the local things I could forage.

To learn how to kayak I bought a kayak and got in.

Have an absurd amount of free time available

Gather resources about your interest

Phone off

Consume resources

Take break

Consume resources

Repeat

I dip my toes into a subject, an overview on wiki or a well made youtube essay as a primer. I try not to get too deep into a topic before I know if I really want to get into it. So the primer on the topic sometimes satisfies my curiosity enough and other times it just whets my appetite for more.

I pick whatever interests me the most at the time. I get books from the library and buy the cheapest, most basic, necessary tools. My goal is to finish a project. If it sticks, I find a mentor / teacher. People love to share their niche skills.
Recently, there was basket weaving (needed a good knife), then food fermenting (needed jars and salt, which I had), then kombucha and kefir (needed a mother and grains, which I just had to ask around in my community for), then Láadan (a conlang for women, there's a free online course), then 3D-printing (my neighbor builds his own printers, he's been teaching me stuff).

Anki is a great tool. It's a flashcard program that handles presenting you the cards; pre-made decks are available for a ton of subjects and you can make your own.

If you want to pause learning, you stop adding new cards and in a few days/weeks, your reviews in that deck go down to single digits. you just take a few minutes a day to stay at your level and you don't completely lose ground.

https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks?sort=title

Read about it, then experiment.

A goal is good. Start working toward it, learn what you need as you need it.

Try writing the topics down, then sorting them into a tier list of what you'd most like to learn if you had to choose. Take the few things at the top, and try to set aside regular scheduled time each day/week to focus on them.

Once you have topics, do some searches for 'how to learn x', etc. Sort through the slop, you should find some people eager to share how they learned it.

Also, ask around on Lemmy for individual topics.

Depending on the topic/sort of topic, find a textbook. Those are exactly an attempt to layout a learning plan. You don't have to read it cover to cover or do every exercise, but follow how they've organized material. Same kind of thing, you can search and find course syllabi that college profs have put online for free, or MOOC stuff like MIT OCW.

Wikipedia sure helps. I probably learned most of my car knowledge from Wikipedia including, but not limited to actual mechanicals as well as models and history.

depends ... what are you interested in? why do you want to learn things in the first place?

There are a lot of good comments here, I think its good to add that it is ok to abandon some things you are learning. Some thing may end up being not that interesting, time consuming or too hard.

I guess I'm trying to say to enter new topics with realistic expectations.

For me, my interest is piqued by something I see or experience, and I wonder how it works. So, I start researching by just searching the Internet and seeing what people are saying about it. I tend to stick with amateurish sites, or the raw science behind it. Advanced builds or complicated analysis can wait until I've gotten my hands dirty. Usually at this point I decide if this is something I could actually do, and if so, I start shipping! I pick out the best of the cheapest according to my expert sources, and get working.

After a few weeks I'll get bored and never touch it again. But, that might just be the ADHD talking.

I did homebrewing for the longest because it takes so damn long. I never really got any good at lock picking, but I might be able to get your desk drawer open.

I have generally been intrinsinctly motivated but honestly thats kinda bad as I need a reason to learn something. Like a project or something I want to do. I have a hard time learning a skill just for the heck of it. I do like learning general things but that tends to be very surface and its only sometimes I take a deep dive. Also the older I get the more I just want to live and be.

I'll come at this from another direction, Whats your highest level of education you have through schools/colleges etc? and what subjects was it in? Someone with a background in arts is going to have a completely different mindset say a science or practical subject

Learning for no reason other than to learn makes it hard to stay motivated. Pick some sort of goal and accomplish it. Want to learn how to make something? Start reading about it and make it. Learn as you go, make mistakes. Once you've done it, choose something else to make/do/figure out. A broad knowledge base also makes future things easier to learn because there are always things that will overlap even in seemingly completely different subjects.

Currently it's downloading videos from youtube (plant physiology lectures from Cornell and theCrux biochem/microbiology), heading over to a cafe and sitting down to watch the videos while taking notes and drawing things out.

I picked what I want to learn because afaict there is a relatively small group of enzymes that all humanity relies on for sustenance, and I want to try to stick those in a machine so we don't have to use ~80% of all land on the planet to overproduce food and not feed everyone. Could also have the effect of vastly reducing peoples reliance on governments and companies for their survival.

After downloading the videos using the firefox extension; Easy Youtube Video Downloader Express, I transfer those videos onto my phone and then I apply sunscreen to my face and arms (sometimes legs if it's really hot out). Then I go to my favourite cafe so as not to waste the sunscreen (the sunscreen is important).

Motivation for me comes from the knowledge that what I'm working towards could change the world if it's successful, hopefully for the better but how can anyone really tell. *And also not wasting sunscreen.

are looking to get into a new career, perhaps look on some youtube video, to see if you can even grasp the subject