Learning woodworking skills like cutting mortise and tenon or dovetail joints can seem daunting, but the speaker finds motivation in the fact that farmers without modern tools accomplished such tasks centuries ago. Despite coming from an engineering background, the speaker's only prior building experience was a treehouse. Woodworking involves intricate design and precise planning, unlike typical construction work with 2x4s. The complexity and challenge in cutting joints and framing timber adds a fun mathematical aspect to the process, which the speaker finds enjoyable and rewarding.