Henry Ford once said －

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

In this ever-changing world of technology, where new things emerge each day, it becomes significant for one to keep themselves updates to the latest trends. And if you are a developer, it would be languages, frameworks or methodologies that you will need to learn and understand.

Concept

I am going to talk about the concept of Active learning in this edition. It is a methodology of learning things where you actually dive-in and get your hands dirty with what you learnt. For ex., if you are learning a language, you should be using the words with others as you learn. The more you learn, the more you become fluent.

By this approach, you will not only be understanding the language better, but also would be putting what you have learnt into practice. Additionally, it helps in re-emphasizing what you learnt.

How I learn new things

For over 3 years now, I have been following this approach for learning new things in tech. From languages, to frameworks to even trying out some SaaS & Cloud tools, this method has been super helpful for me, ensuring that I have a deeper grasp of the topic.

I have built multiple side-projects for learning Node, Postgres, DB Adapters like Prisma, GraphQL, testing frameworks like Jest etc. I have re-written my portfolio website multiple times over the last 4 years using various UI frameworks and static site generators(React/Gatsby/NextJS, Vue/VuePress, Hugo being some of them) for the same purpose.

My checklist (for developers)

Overcoming fear

Fear is an important aspect to talk about when it comes to having learning goals. Let me tell you this - everyone is afraid of something or the other. But do not let it stop you from achieving things.

A simple tip to overcome fear is to invest in self-appreciation throughout the process. Make sure to celebrate small wins.

A win can be any of the following:

• Completing a task
• Organizing what to learn
• Maintaining a 3-day streak
• Understanding a concept
• Completing a functionality

It may seem trivial, but over time, they turn out to be habits that can shape you as a learner.

Next step

Choose something to learn and commit to it!

It is difficult for you to forget the things you learned through this process and the challenges faced in practice cannot possibly be anticipated by just learning something.

Happy learning!