[Chris Nowak]

read the book, ya?

Seriously, There is soooo much stuff out there on the web its crazy. Your best bet, however, is to find a project(think it up beforehand) and then do it. If you don't know how to do something, look it up. If you really want to learn fast, get someone to teach you. I have found it almost impossible to actually sit down and read through one of the ref books for longer than like 10 mins so you need to do something that will keep you interested.

Just find a project. Its how I've learned every single program I know to date. It's the only thing reasonably guaranteed to hold your interest. You can't really systematically go through all the file menus and such and expect to get a good understanding of it b/c you will have no idea how it all goes together. Ditto with the books.