4 Proven Strategies to Become a Better Drafter

This weeks guest post comes from Yevgeniy (Eugene) Kovalenko, CAD Drafter and Blogger at Draftinghub.com.

I remember the first time I saw AutoCAD. I still try to bring that emotion to mind everytime I get to teach someone a new AutoCAD skill. This is a great post – take it away Eugene.

If you would like to write for Cadsetterout.com, read this.

4 Proven Strategies to Become a Better Drafter

Do you remember the first time you laid your eyes on AutoCAD?

What were your thoughts? My first interaction with AutoCAD was twelve years ago and to be honest I was intimidated. I knew I wanted to be a draftsman since I was a little kid, yes I really did, but I didn’t know I had to learn this “confusing” and “intimidating” software.

That was just first of many challenges in my journey as a draftsman. The reality is that if you want to be a great draftsman you must overcome many obstacles and challenges. A good drafter knows how to do his job well, a great drafter on the other hand, is constantly learning and improving his/her skills by challenging him/herself.

In this post I want to share four proven ways to become a better drafter. There are many other ways to improve your skills, but these are strategies that I constantly use to not just be good at my job, but to be great at it.

#1 Read and Follow Drafting Related Blogs and Forums

My guess is if you are reading this post you are already practicing this step. I am a firm believer in self-education and with all the information available on the internet, paid and/or free, it’s easy as never before to improve your drafting skills via blogs and forums.

I would recommend keeping an organized list of top blogs that you learn from and come back to on a regular basis. I’ve been keeping a list of helpful resources that I refer to daily. You are more than welcome to grab that extensive list here (http://www.draftinghub.com/resources/).

I would also recommend not being just a passive consumer of those blogs and forums. Make sure you become part of those communities in order to get as much as possible out of them. You can do that by commenting, asking questions, providing valuable opinions and thoughts.

#2 Watch Video Tutorials

Internet is an amazing thing. It’s incredible how over the last few years sites like YouTube became not just a video site, but a search engine. A great way to utilize this video search engine is to use it for educational purposes. That’s right, it’s not just for watching cat videos!

Whenever I get stuck or don’t know how to perform certain task I search YouTube, sometimes even before Google. There are so many insightful video tutorials out there that it’s practically impossible to be stuck.

Related post: The Top Five Inventor Videos from CloudCAD

#3 Explore and Study Other Drafting Fields

Don’t get comfortable with your field of expertise. You may be the best drafter in your specific niche, but it’s important to expand your horizons to other drafting fields. For example, if your area of expertise is architectural drafting, a great place to start is to learn more about mechanical and electrical drafting standards.

In today’s world, being multifaceted in your field is crucially important and valuable. In my experience most employers value that more than your level of education.

#4 Teach Others What You Already Know

The old Latin phrase:

Docendo discimus

which means, “by teaching, we learn” is very true. The best way to improve your own skills is to teach others what you already know or maybe what you don’t fully know but want to know.

By teaching I don’t mean official teaching position in a local community college or school. Maybe it’s just sharing CAD tips with your coworkers, training new drafters in your firm, writing a blog or recording CAD video tutorials.

When you teach others you become more confident in what you already know and as a result improve your performance as a drafter.

So these are my top strategies on how to become a better drafter. I would love for the conversation to continue.

Please comment below with your strategies for becoming a better drafter.

What tips can you share with the community?