There are over one billion result on Google for "How to learn Python"

So if you want to learn python it's overwhelming to know when it starts. Let alone when it's for a niche area like insurance. But it doesn't need to be!

For every new analyst in my team, or when an actuary asks how to supercharge their career by learning python, I always give them one answer

If you want to learn python, here is how I would do it:

Use it to make your life easier - automate

Find a process or a task you need to do regularly and automate it using python

I find that automation is a very simple way to get your toes dirty with a new programming language. Being able to see real and immediate results is also very empowering to your new found journey. In fact, when it's getting rid of a process you hate, seeing those results just makes you want to push forward.

And it does not need to be a huge project.

Here's 3 examples that I've seen as first python automation projects

• Monitoring a competitors website for any changes. Doing this manually on a daily basis will anyone tear their hair out, but a automated script picks up any changed day to day. Develops packages such as requests, beautifulsoup, as well learning how to send an email automatically via python.

• Setting up the same KPI dashboard for a set of products, or distributors. We've all seen these - page after page in a PowerPoint that someone copies the same table and graph for each slide. Get a chance to practice pandas and as a bonus how to output to PowerPoint

• Turn a regular calculation into an api. Instead of an Excel simulator or calculator, host it on AWS Lambda and expose it through API Gateway

Tackling any of these will throw a huge amount of questions, so balancing with a python tutorial or mentorship is important.

However, there is no motivation solving bookwork examples so a live task gives so much more inspiration.