I've been playing around with the idea of hiring an Emacs coach, since Steve Purcell, Christopher Wellons, and Bastien Guerry all offer this service. It helps to go in with a clear idea of what I want to learn, though, so let me figure this stuff out.

Here are some general topics, sketching out an order for learning the subtopics:

• Thinking syntactically, so that I can work faster and more reliably
  1. Expand-region: Faster selection.
  2. Smartparens: Logical manipulation. This is probably the biggest chunk.
  3. Erefactor, redshank: Other tools for working with Lisp.
  4. Magit: Thinking of changes in terms of commits; low priority because I rarely need to coordinate with others, although I can bump this up if working on community code
  5. In general, working with larger chunks – so also projectile and other cool tools
• Web development workflow, so I can work more professionally and handle more complexity. Focusing on Rails, NodeJS, and AngularJS
  • Rails workflow
    1. Testing
    2. Constant testing with guard, better interaction with browsers, etc.
    3. Navigating between files in a project with Rinari or Projectile
    4. Code navigation and documentation lookup with Robe
    5. Working with things like HAML, Sass/Less, CoffeeScript
    6. Refactoring Ruby code
  • Javascript workflow
    1. Testing frameworks, running tests
    2. Getting autocomplete sorted out
    3. Integrating Skewer into the way I work
    4. Working with things like HAML, Sass/Less, CoffeeScript
    5. Rapid prototyping: Grunt, Yeoman, etc.
  • General-purpose tools
    1. Folding/overview, imenu?
    2. Jumping to specific points quickly – ace-window, ace-jump, helm-swoop
• Integration, so that I can take advantage of Emacs in more parts of my life
  1. Organizing my journal
  2. Trying out Elnode so that I can expose Emacs information to Javascript
  3. Getting back to doing mail in Gnus
  4. Using MobileOrg to review Org on the go?
• Internals, debugging, and contributing to the community so that I can help out, and so that I can customize and debug more extensively
  • Emacs core, Org internals, syntax, font-locking, indentation, macros, Helm, …

Coaches are also good for pointing out what you don't even know you don't know, which is a lot when it comes to Emacs. That's another nice benefit of having someone look over your shoulder – they can catch you doing something in a round-about way even if you don't even know that a more efficient way exists. But even with the stuff I know I don't know (and that I have a reasonable plan for learning), there's plenty to keep me occupied for the next few years. =) Besides, helping out on IRC and in mailing lists/newsgroups will expose me to stuff I don't know too.

So instead of turning up on one of these people's (virtual) doorstops and asking, “Can you teach me all the stuff I don't know?”, maybe this is what I can do instead:

• Lay the groundwork by writing about and demonstrating the things I do know, so that I explore my limits, help other people learn, possibly get suggestions from random passers-by, and help potential mentors/coaches quickly get a sense of what I might be missing
• Double-check my plans for learning different things with more experienced people who can give me feedback on sequence, exercises, and things I should include
• Develop plans for deliberate practice of different components; slow down and notice opportunities to try things out
• Share what I'm learning and my plans for what to learn next
• Touch base once in a while

So much to learn! =)