The Problem
Does this sound familiar?
You sit down to learn React. You open YouTube. Three hours later, you've watched a tech news video, a gaming review, and a "Day in the Life of a Google Engineer" vlog... but you haven't written a single line of code.
I was in this exact spot 6 months ago.
I realized that "Tutorial Hell" isn't a lack of discipline. It's a lack of structure.
A Junior Dev today has access to 10,000+ free courses. The problem isn't finding content. It's filtering it.
The Solution: A "Green Light" System
I decided to stop watching random videos and build a system. I curated the top 1% of free tutorials (Traversy, Kevin Powell, Web Dev Simplified) and organized them into a rigorous roadmap.
Here is the logic I used to filter the noise:
1. The "Traffic Light" Method
I categorized every resource into three buckets:
- 🟢 Green (GO): Essential concepts you use daily (e.g., Array Methods, Flexbox,
useState). - 🟡 Yellow (CAUTION): Concepts you only need to know exist (e.g., Redux, Docker). Don't deep dive yet.
- 🔴 Red (STOP): Distractions that kill momentum (e.g., "Is AI replacing devs?", "Rust vs Go").
2. Project-First Learning
Watching a video is passive. Building is active.
I stopped following "To-Do List" tutorials and started building assets:
- A SaaS Landing Page (for HTML/CSS layout).
- A Live Crypto Dashboard (for Fetch API & Async/Await).
- A Netflix Clone (for React architecture).
The Result
This structure helped me go from "watcher" to "builder" in weeks.
I turned this entire system into a Notion Template called Filterr.
It includes the exact curated links, the "Green Light" curriculum, and the project briefs.
I'm currently running a Beta for the first 50 users who want to try it out.
👉 You can check out the Filterr Kit here
Let me know in the comments: What is the one concept that got YOU stuck in tutorial hell?
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