While doing my JavaScript and ReactJs tutorial search I came across this inspiring article Learning How to Learn: The Most Important Developer Skill by Preethi Kasireddy. This post really resonated me at my core especially reminding myself that (i) learning is a process and not a goal, and (ii) turning learning into an engaging process.

After reading Preethi’s post, I took some time to reflect upon my own learning approach and coping with my lows times in learning.

My learning Approach

My learning approach is very similar that is described by the author.

• Google search. I start my learning process with a good search. Then I select the blogs or tutorials from known resources like MDN Documentation, recognized developers, FreeCodeCamp, Medium etc.
• Quick review of selected articles, blog posts. In this process I try to run through the articles/posts with an aim to understand the concepts and presentation. I mostly look at how the content is organized, its presentation, depth of subject matter etc. If I find useful, I bookmark for my future reference.
• Draft outline. I start a topic with an blank outline with a title and bookmarked references. Then I start reading these resources, often taking notes and adding to the outline doc. Then I gradually build upon as I read the bookmarked articles.
• Never Give up. I never give up even if I find hard to understand a subject. After attempting few times, I try to identify pain points and learn about those topics first and return back later. This happens a lot often when I get distracted to cracking pain-points from one topic to another.
• Skip hard to understand topic for a while. Some hard to understand topic I skip for months before I come back later (some time several times) before I completely understand  and complete the topic.

Lows Learning Time

We all have high & low times in our lives. Even in learning, there are productive or not-so productive days. How I cope during my low times:

• When I really get frustrated because I can’t understand a topic and make progress, I take a short break and move to other subjects.
• Sometime, I get frustrated with pace of my learning and not able to meet my learning goals. At that point, I start ready to accept my own pace of learning, as long as I feel that I am making progress.
• Technology learning is just like building something on the top of moving ship. Because the nature of technology development is fast due to product enhancement or updates, there is always new thing to learn. Often before mastering some techniques it already becomes absolute to use. There is always new thing to learn.

Inspirational Post

Write Code Every Day | John Resig. Developing a routine of daily learning/coding is incredibly productive endeavor. Most rewarding aspect this process is that after a while it becomes a habit.

Note: This post is cross posted in JS Blog site. Cover photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash