tl;dr
Why: lately I've noticed that reading all newsletters and blogs I'm subscribing to consumes a lot of my time and the knowledge which I get from them mostly falls in: superficial, unrelated to my current scope of work/applications, doesn't surprise me (i.e. I read what I expect).
How: I'm dumping as many newsletters as I comfortably can (cruel). Others I'm redirecting to a separate mail folder (filtering), so I don't have a sense of losing something, but they're not in my main mailbox, hence out of my sight (less cruel).
Last years I've been subscribing to various blogs and newsletters. Those provided me with a huge value, especially professionally starting in IT. As I don't have a formal IT background, they served perfectly in extending my "what I still don't know" knowledge.
When I started learning python, those subscriptions provided me with very great advice, insights, new topics, etc. which I didn't know about. And over a few months, I learned a ton of new stuff about python.
But as I knew more, I encountered fewer and fewer useful articles for myself coming randomly from subscriptions. Regarding python, I got more aware of what I still don't know and what I'd like to learn. I felt I was getting more value in deliberately finding appropriate resources myself. I was no longer as excited about all those subscriptions as I was before.
A similar thing happened with other topics: cybersecurity, management, startups, business, investing, containers, CI/CD, etc. I know that I'm no expert in all the topics, but
- I either didn't feel like knowing something new after reading the article or
- I felt I have to do some hands-on practice to understand the content of an article better,
- or the topic is out of my current application domain.
Which means that a large amount of time I was spending learning/reading about the things, which aren't useful today but might be in the future. And that wouldn't be a problem, but
the time is limited. And as I'd been spending 1-2 hours a day reading the news and blogs (most of which I simply scrolled through), I felt it was no longer the best investment of my time.
Instead, concentrating on specific topics and having some deep learning with books or some projects feels more productive. And less obligations to my mailbox.
After the rise, shine, and fall of the news subscriptions, here I am without them again. Oh, that sense of freedom... And what will I do with all that time???
And have You ever been in such a situation? Let me know!
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