just with any program, practice makes perfect.

hell i still have to remind my mom that she doesn't need to log into her yahoo mail account to print something... <sigh>

the more you use maya and the more you log in hours of modeling and the like, the more efficient you'll be able to do things, and the less time it'll take you the next time around.

it's like typing on a keyboard. unless you start off with a typing class, you start off with a finger or two circling around trying to find the 'G' key (as i did lol) before you remember where it is.

edit: i think books are the way to go at first. they usually tell you what things do, where you can find them, and how to go about doing the simple things. video or text online tutorials are good too because they take you step-by-step through a process and you can take as long as you need to get to the next step.