There are two really easy ways to develop pattern recognition skills:
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Be born with them.
Many child prodigies in various disciplines – notably art, chess and mathematics – appear to be born with a highly attenuated ability to discern intricate patterns.
The fact that you’re reading a blog post about how to develop pattern recognition skills would seem to indicate that, like me, you are not one of these people.
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Put in your 10,000 hours.
Thanks to original work on expertise by Nobel prize winner Herbert Simon, subsequently popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, it’s now widely accepted that mastery of any discipline (i.e., reaching the stage where pattern recognition has become second nature), absent the birth gene referred to above, requires 10,000 hours of practice / experience.
Put in your 10,000 hours, see patterns in your sleep. Easy.