What is your single best advice for studying / acquiring new skills?

The sooner you start something and start failing. Get yourself into a feedback loop of try/fail/try again/fail less/etc/etc

You can read and research all day long, but that does not build skill.

Test your own ideas by writing and sharing. Hopefully the feedback you get from peers and anons online will be helpful.

Just get on with it without wasting time trying to find the best way. Suboptimal methods achieve better results than not starting.

My favorite:

"The idea is to study by lecturing out-loud, to an imaginary class, about the key concepts you need to learn. Something about articulating arguments in complete sentences cements them in your mind like nothing else."

from http://calnewport.com/blog/2007/08/02/the-straight-a-gospels...

Stop looking for the perfect advice/best method/non-existing silver bullet and just do it.

For me:

Get book on the subject, read from cover to cover and create question/answer in Anki.

When it comes time to refresh your knowledge on the book, just test yourself on the items you added to Anki.

Break it down into small incremental bits and dedicate ten minutes per day, every day. Once you've done this regularly for a month or two, you'll have a better sense of where to go from there.

Don't do it unless you plan to treat it seriously.

Create a project that depends on that skill.

Want to learn a language? Plan a trip to a place that speaks that.

Want to learn circuitry? Build a digital clock.

etc...

I like to apply the things i learn and enjoy how they change the way i work or do tasks!

(for anything "doable") learn by doing. Practice is the best teacher.