There are a few mental shifts that need to take place for SketchUp to stick in your brain. One is to shift from "making a drawing" to "building a model". Being trained and experienced in board drafting and AutoCAD, that was a big change for me. I got a lot better, a lot faster when I realized I should be pretending to build; make a part, copy the part a certain distance away and the make other parts in between. To keep control of stuff I make components as soon as a part exists in three dimensions. Navigation in the model is also critical; you need to see exactly what you're doing if you want an accurate model. The third thing is to avoid drawing anything from scratch if you have something similar that already exists; copying takes far less time. The nature of components in SketchUp allows you to do some amazing things. I usually make a complete model without any joinery then go back and add in the details. When the model is done, any information you want to see in 2D can be extracted from the 3D model.

Bob Lang