I learned electronics outside of school, but as part of a job (which has turned into a 20 year career of hardware design). I remember learning by needing to decipher schematics and repair broken circuits, which is what I was first asked to do, before I knew electronics. I would read the datasheets of the devices and try to understand. I would research what I didnt understand until I did to get to the next step.

For me this worked very well - I need a goal, a purpose. Designing things is good, but I think repairing things is perhaps even better for learning and getting started. Particularly if you have one working example and one broken example, and you can compare circuits.

So my advice - if you have one of something that works and has a circuit board, and you can find a schematic for it...go buy a broken one, and fix it. Then you can sell the newly working one, and do it again with something else. You'll learn a lot, and it will be very practical stuff to have learned. The art of hardware troubleshooting is its own wonderful talent to have.