Learn One Thing Per Quarter
Not one course. Not one tutorial. One real thing, used in a real project.
I stopped doing "learn X in a weekend" sprints. They do not stick. I now pick one thing per quarter and actually use it in something real.
Q1 this year was Rust. Not a tutorial project, but rewriting a small CLI tool I actually use daily. It took three months and the code is probably not idiomatic, but I can read Rust now. I understand ownership. I can contribute to a Rust codebase without panicking.
The trick is:
- Pick something you are curious about (not something LinkedIn says is hot)
- Build something small but real with it
- Give it a full quarter (not a weekend)
- Accept that your first attempt will be bad
Previous quarters: Docker (finally learned it properly instead of copying Dockerfiles from Stack Overflow), PostgreSQL internals (read the documentation cover to cover, not just the "quick start"), and CSS Grid (I know, I should have learned it years ago).
My queue for upcoming quarters: WebAssembly, basic electronics (Arduino), and maybe Urdu calligraphy (not everything has to be tech).
- Mohan
- Mohan