# How good are you at figuring stuff out?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-you-at-figuring-stuff-out/1006680>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 3, 2024, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-you-at-figuring-stuff-out/1006680 "2024-09-03T13:08:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2024, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-you-at-figuring-stuff-out/1006680/42 "2024-09-05T11:19:34Z")

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> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#):
>
> I am normally pretty good at figuring things out. I am a mechanic by trade. But lately I have been trying to learn a cad program and my brain just seems to shut down within minutes of turning it on. I don’t make any progress. Not sure how to deal with this as I really need to learn this program.

Have you searched YouTube? There could be some good demos there.

And not to hijack the thread, but it is related: video instructions annoy me because they are linear. I start at the beginning and then maybe 45 seconds later I get to the part I need. 45 seconds isn’t all that long but hopefully you get the point. Sometimes the relevant information is several minutes in.

At least with written instructions you’re not forced to start reading at word #1 and read completely to the 20,000th word where the relevant information starts. You can jump ahead using the TOC.

Some videos have labeled sections so I can FF to the relevant part. But many (most?) do not.

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**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2024, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-are-you-at-figuring-stuff-out/1006680/43 "2024-09-05T13:47:32Z")

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> [@Spoons](#):
>
> Hey, I resemble that remark. Well, not really. I was a technical writer for over 20 years, writing everything from software user manuals, to hardware manuals, to training manuals, to drug formularies, to ghost-writing textbooks, and pretty much everything else in between. Mine were written well, and in English

Well I wish you had written the book on the software I’m using at my teaching gig. I’ve run into the same problem I had last year at another company - the manual no longer addresses the current version of the product.

Software can be changed and configured so much that by the time a client or company gets it how they want the menus, diagrams and other information are nearly useless. Then they update the software again which further clouds the issue. And then I find myself with a tech help desk person who think I’m an idiot when the fact is, they spend every day staring at this stuff. I’m just trying to use it as a tool and at this point I’m about to start using a clipboard and pencil. This is the same phenomenon as getting poor road directions from a local - they live there and don’t think about it. When they do, they can’t explain it properly.

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