Too much to learn and not enough time
As a software engineer, I feel like I always have a lot of things to learn but never enough time. I have 100s of articles, newsletters, documents, videos bookmarked to go through later. Some of these are work related - business domain, design documents, best practices, new technology etc. Others are more general - system design, career advice, clean code, new AI tools etc. It's a constant struggle. How do you deal with it? Is there a system that you follow to manage your time and prioritize your learning?
![Senior Software Engineer [E5] at Meta company logo](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffirebasestorage.googleapis.com%2Fv0%2Fb%2Ftech-career-growth.appspot.com%2Fo%2Fcompany_logos%252Fmeta.jpeg%3Falt%3Dmedia%26token%3Da7a5bcc0-e178-4b5b-b71e-09bf6c6aefae&w=48&q=75){kind=small}
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Discussion
(2 comments)- 48 months agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
Start with the outcome you want. What will you do with the knowledge you gain from all those articles, newsletters, and videos?
Declare a goal that you can achieve in the next 3-4 months (2+ years is too far out).
This is how you should prioritize your time. Ruthlesslessy ignore resources that will not help you achieve the goal you established.
Great answers here: Feeling overwhelmed with everything I need to learn at my new job
- 3
8 months agoEngineer @ RobinhoodOnce I hit senior, the amount I cared about learning outside of what's needed for the job went to 0. It'll be nice to be on top of the current meta of software, but most of these learnings provide me 0 value within my day-to-day job. My day job provides me the most monetary value in life, so I will only learn something new if there's a clear business use case within my day job. Outside of that, I don't care about learning to keep on top of everything: there's simply too much to keep up with.
