by all means not the right way (as I'm learning like you) but you can select a number of faces and then do a planar/cylindrical/spherical map. Move these uv's out of the way (in the uv editor) and do that for a few areas till its all spread out. Alternatively like on mr mckinleys uv map video on his site you can split the model areas up into individual parts to map and then join it all back after.