Making time to learn: What is your approach?

I think a lot of us can fall into the "learning trap" and having it be fruitless. In other words, if you're too busy learning something totally new because you're too busy actively building something, then I think you've won.

As @mezod said, we all suffer from too many interests, so that part is sort of inevitable. The best analogy I've come up with is the difference between kinetic and potential energy, which I tried writing about here (http://kanonical.io/potential-energy/ - this is literally the first time I've ever shared a link to something I've written, so go easy!) I really think you learn by making mistakes and trying again.. so if you're focused on doing stuff 80% of the time, you've got it.

I find something to build or a way to work something into what I am currently working on and go HAM on learning it.

So for example, I want to learn about progressive web apps and how to implement them. Instead of doing a ton of research up front, I will do about 30 min of reading, starting implementing and look things up as I go.

I am a kinetic learner so I have to do this process to even learn the thing in the first place. It took me a long time to learn what type of learning works best for me. If you haven't found what style of learning you identify with, then that would be step one.

You can read, listen, watch until your eyes and ears fall out/off but if it isn't jiving with what sticks in your mind the best, it is worthless time spent.

Peter, I've run into this issue before. So I definitely feel you here. One key thing I've managed to do to help this situation of feeling overwhelmed with the great stuff out there is:

1. Now I keep a master book list, I track what i've read and what I want to read next. I use numbers (apples version of excel) for this.

This helps me to reduce the mind clutter around remembering the things I want to read.

2. Ironically forgot where I heard or read this: "Don't read, just to read."

But this point here is key. I've stopped reading books just to say I read books. Now, when I read books I'm looking for actionable things I can implement into my work or personal life that FIT ME.

That's the main thing to be wary of. Every book offers a moral or advice, I find most people who get overwhelmed with their learning and growing as a person are trying to implement every bit of advice they get. Then they get confused.

"If i'm not staying up and working late, I'm not trying hard enough"

"I have to implement a miracle morning routine!"

"I need to do 10 minutes of reading, followed by 14.6 minutes of meditation, eat 2 and 1/4th hard boiled eggs and then practice my gratitude"

It becomes ridiculous if we don't figure out what we want in life. Then things like reading become just another chore in life.

Read because you enjoy it. Read to learn something.

I'll leave one last tip. If you're 1/3rd the way through a book and you think it sucks - even though it was highly touted as a must read. It's ok to put the book down and not pick it back up. It wasn't for you.

Hope this helps.

I'm trying to get back to it, but I used to have a very strict book reading routine with my Kindle. I'd read an hour before going to bed, and any other time around the day.

Nowadays I've been too busy to do that, but I still take my Kindle to waiting rooms and appointments - it's so small, you can carry it in a jacket pocket.

In terms of material, I have a rather long queue of stuff to read- I just never finish things because I have no time. :(

Though one thing I do quite a lot is reading blog posts - I do this very frequently.

What it works for me is starting with a quick read of the (official) documentation, leave it open and start a little & simple coding project, to put your hand on it.

This makes you start doing questions & decisions that you could solve either reading again the docs or S.O.

Once you have basic knowledge, I switch to more complex video tutorials (youtube, free lessons on Udemy like sites) and follow relevant people on Twitter.

If you want a full dive on it, download podcasts/pdf's and listen/read while you are not online, but always trying to make coding projects (it will make you create the environment, front facing problems from start, etc.).

Hope it helps!

Is your question about finding time to learn or about prioritizing from what resources to learn?

I have a reading routine: I read blog posts and tweets from people I know on Twitter and Telegram. I also read a lot of Twitter threads everyday about different topics but in this case it’s related to one of our project. Taking a break to only read books sounds like a good idea, it’s better to find new ideas and focus on what you are learning/discovering.

First thing in the morning do it for as long as you can (if you don't have time on weekdays, go for weekends)

I'm facing the same challenge and one thing that worked well for me is switching to podcasts and audiobooks.

You can listen to them on your commute, at the gym, while doing passive tasks, etc.

When it comes to blog posts, a great strategy is to follow relevant people on Twitter and focus on reading the content they share.

This is a good question.

I practice just in time learning.

Like, why am I trying to bust churn when I only have 6 customers?

Instead, I would focus on getting more customers.

Why would I spend time learning about split testing if the page was getting less than 1,000 visitors?

In addition to just in time learning, I’m also REALLY selective about what I consume.

Some content is decent but it matters who it’s coming from. If the person is selling information then they’ll obviously hold some things back. If they don’t sell information then it may be a more candid look at what’s really achievable.

Lastly, I don’t discriminate about the medium. It can be a book, an article, a video, or a course. That’s irrelevant.

To sum up, I don’t look for the info until I need it and then I’m super selective about what I consume.

I came to conclusion that most blog posts are.. well.. crap. I won't waste my time on posts on medium and etc.

Other than this, I do suggest books. I'm not yet full time invested in my sis gig, so I have to travel to work and I use this commuting time to read.

I'm against dedicated days for reading, but dedicated time sounds good. You can go to a park or other quite place and take a book / kindle with yo.

To me, podcasts and youtube videos are the best way to go. Podcasts allow me to multi-task while listening and I do podcasts while commuting or jogging. Youtube videos are a fast way to absorb knowledge as well since it doesn't require you to read through hundreds of pages and instead watch a summarized version of a certain topic. Absolutely love podcasts and watching informative videos. Best way to learn if you are a busy person :)

Great question. I think about this a lot.

A philosophy I am fond of is just-in-time learning. This is the idea that we learn something only when it becomes absolutely necessary. Why? Because the usefulness of learning something is amplified if you go on to immediately use it.

This is opposed to learning for learning sake. Whilst learning is always valuable, it also comes at the opportunity cost of other stuff i.e. building.

Nathan touches on it in this post (https://hackernoon.com/i-used-to-be-a-skeptic-but-the-first-two-weeks-of-techstars-boulder-have-blown-my-mind-d05c6fc55c91):

"In the words of Stephen Covey, I was investing all my time in Production and none of my time into Production Capacity. I was constantly chopping wood but never stopping to sharpen my axe."

I think its important to stop and sharpen your axe, but to do so when it becomes necassary and immediately useful (i.e. you can't progress onto the next step without it).

It's nice to explore the internet and find things that are fun to learn about. I have about 20 newsletter about various topics: programming; science; technology; society; religion; health; and others.

Sometimes I sit in silence with my thoughts and process everything that has happened recently. This helps me discover answers to how I deal with people.

In my 16+ years of coding (hobby, study, work, side-projects) I've encountered 2 ways on how to learn:

1. as a side-project in my spare time (early mornings, after work and weekends).

Best is to set fixed moments and durations to get going. Actually building a product has proved so much more valuable than learning by example and making all sorts of stuff I never use again.

Only create small stuff if you're a junior in your field, and not too long... Everyone else: start building product!

2. During your day job. I shifted work a couple of time, each time I got to do what I wanted (starting with web dev at a big bank > native mobile dev at small company > cross-platform dev at bigger consultancy company > tech lead at startup). Each job gave me more room to explore, develop and create products and a way of working. It gave me room to learn on the job and I had to answer less and less each time.

#2 is preferred as it adds to your income, doesn't mean investing more time (handy if you're a family man/woman like I am). For personal stuff like my own product ideas, I go to #1. It might take longer but finishing stuff is awesome and you'll learn a tonne of stuff.

FWIW: I use online free resources. Google is my best friend when developing something, IH and Marc Kohlbrugge's WIP.chat communities keep me motivated and help out, too.

I think we all suffer from little time and too many interests.

I've tried your approach before and it didn't work for me because I couldn't spend whole days "giving up on real action/progress". In other words, I'd be worrying of not doing real work leading to not focusing on learning.

My approach is more on focusing on a specific topic and committing a bit of time for several days to it. I try to be flexible about it but the broad idea is to begin the day getting shit done, so that I can spend 30min to 2h learning whichever topic I've chosen. It's the idea of doing every day a little bit ;)

The real challenge here is learning to discard topics. For example, I have a list of things I want to learn (some items are very broad, others quite specific) and I try to prioritize and constantly rinse the list.

Finally, I'd really encourage you to learn on demand by picking a specific project. I.e want to learn to play the guitar? Have a "play Day Tripper" project. want to learn to code javascript? come up with a simple web app idea and try to get it to work.