For me, it's orders of magnitude more efficient to try out a new technology than to read a book. For example, I recently took on a more advanced Arduino project

For me, it's orders of magnitude more efficient to try out a new technology than to read a book. For example, I recently took on a more advanced Arduino project. Knowing very little about electrical engineering, I've been making slow tangible progress, but immense intellectual progress. I usually end up seeking out reference material to supplement my experimentation, but by far most of my learning comes from actually "building something using the technology".