The first time I decided to start using Org, I printed out the reference card with all the keyboard shortcuts...and quickly gave up. But I hadn't learned Emacs

The first time I decided to start using Org, I printed out the reference card with all the keyboard shortcuts...and quickly gave up. But I hadn't learned Emacs itself yet, so trying to learn to use Org without really knowing how to use Emacs didn't work. Later, I learned Emacs itself, and then learning Org was much easier, because I could look up functions and keys and variables and customizations, etc. from within Emacs. As some other people said, I just learned a little bit at a time as I used Org. Eventually, after customizing it and even making a couple of Org-related packages, it's become my own system that works the way I want it to. And I will probably use it for the rest of my life. That's one of the beautiful things about Emacs and Org.