DEV Community

Discussion on: How to Combat Information Overload?

Collapse
 
skeeveholt profile image
davis davis

As someone who is two years into my first developer job and still constantly distracted by shiny new resources, blogs, posts, frameworks, etc., here's a few things I've found helpful to stay focused.

  1. I stick to one core learning platform. Right now, it's Front End Masters, but it's been other places in the past (Treehouse, Free Code Camp). I try and stay the course until I've taken all of the courses/tutorials I want from that site or until it's not meeting my needs.

  2. Keep an ongoing resources list - I put site urls, book titles, and any other resource lengthier than an article here

  3. I also keep a Things I Want to Learn list - concepts and skills I want to learn or improve. For example: writing shell scripts, vue.js, writing better tests. I add new things to this list so that I'm not constantly distracted by ping ponging around all the things I don't know yet or want to get better at.

  4. Pocket is my BFF. I read blogs and stuff, but I usually save anything with in-depth code samples or that will take me longer than a few minutes to absorb to Pocket. Then I archive them so I don't get overwhelmed by a long feed of unread items. Then, I can read them in batches if I want to work on a particular skill or read up on a particular topic.

  5. On my to-do list, I added Currently Reading and Currently Learning headers. This helps me read one (not always tech related) book at a time and keep track of what concept/course I'm currently working on for tech learning.

This is maybe overkill for some folks, but this has really helped me stay focused on what I'm currently learning but also ensure that I can access cool new things later when I'm ready.

Good luck and happy learning!

Collapse
 
stefanhk31 profile image
Stefan

Thanks! These are great tips. I'm definitely going to have to set up lists of things to do/learn!