Articles

Work skills

Self-study plans for practical work skills — from accounting and spreadsheets to writing and marketing. Each article gives an order of topics, exercises on real tasks and signs that a stage is done.

How a work skill differs from a school subject#

A practical skill is checked by its result, not by retelling the theory. A bookkeeper has to record a transaction and reconcile the accounts, a marketer has to work out what a customer actually cost, a copywriter has to write a text that people read to the end. That is why every plan gives theory in small portions followed straight away by a task on your own or practice data: a spreadsheet, a journal entry, an ad, a working document.

The second difference is tools. Some skills rest on a discipline (accounting, marketing, editing), others on a particular program (Excel, an accounting package). It helps to tell them apart: a discipline is understood once and for a long time, while a program's interface changes from version to version and is learned faster when there is an understanding of the subject behind it.

How to use the articles#

Pick a skill and go through the first two weeks of its plan without skipping: that is enough to tell whether it suits you. Keep the results of every stage — spreadsheets, texts, practice files. By the end of the plan they add up to a small portfolio you can show an employer or a client.

  • Work skills How to learn marketing from scratch

    Marketing is not advertising. It is a chain of decisions about whom to offer what, through which channel, and how to tell whether it paid off. It is easiest to learn on your own with one practice project that goes through every stage. Below is a four-month plan and ways to check yourself with numbers rather than impressions.

  • Work skills How to learn Excel from scratch

    Excel is learned fastest on your own data — a household budget, a task list, an export from work. At an hour a day, six weeks take you from your first formulas to pivot tables and charts. Below is the order of topics, the exercises and ways to tell that a topic has really sunk in.

  • Work skills How to learn copywriting from scratch

    Copywriting is the skill of writing a text that people read to the end and then take the action you need. You can learn it on your own if you write every day, edit your drafts by clear rules and build a portfolio from real tasks. Below is an eight-week plan.

  • Work skills How to learn bookkeeping from scratch

    Bookkeeping is a discipline with strict logic, not a set of buttons in a program. Once you understand the balance sheet and double-entry, everything else — payroll, taxes, financial statements — fits onto a frame you already have. Below is a three-month plan for an adult starting from a blank page. It is built on double-entry principles that work the same in every country; local tax rules are a separate layer on top.