Plenty idea's on the forum and a set of plans from smokerplans.net will make your life so much easier. Well not actually your whole life, just the part that you build smokers with.
Learning generally boils down to "Repetition or the avoidance of pain", some people learn by doing, some by watching and some just have to pee on the electric fence.
Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right. Henry Ford