How to learn efficiently as a developer

Introduction

Hey there! I hope youre all healthy! I want to talk about a topic that is quite tricky and runs through my mind for quite some time. How to learn efficiently as a developer?

Blogs, Tutorials, Videos and...

As a developer there tons (really A LOT) things you have to learn and that you can learn. I have a few subscriptions for tech newsletters. I can go to Hashnode, Dev, Twitter, Youtube, Udemy etc. On each platform you can read articels (like this here) or watch videos. You can learn a lot of things. But you will forget most things. I read and watched a lot about HTTP headers but i forgot most of it. Sure one or two things will stuck into your brain but most of the stuff will be lost. A hugh time waster if you ask me.

The worst part is that our brain tricks us and we think we are productive as we do these things but we are not.

How we can avoid this trap?

Build stuff

Build Stuff. We learn best when we have to do it in practice. I struggled a lot (and sometimes still do) when it comes to Terraform. And after reading the docs and watching videos i forgot most of the things within days. Then i took another approach. I start to use Terraform in my AWS account and learned it while i actually used it.

Learning by doing is the key. Especially as a developer. We learn the most from mistakes. Often we are afraid of doing something because we are afraid of failing. But it should be the other way around.

Search for failure and mistakes and this will make you a better developer and you will learn new things and new technologies in no time!

Summary

I hope this article will help one or two people out there. Just start side projects when you want to learn new topics. Its okay to watch videos. Its okay to read articles. But its not okay to stop there and then forget everything.

Think about a cool side project you may need and want to use for yourself and start building. Start failing. And finally start learning.

Stay connected to me and my content on Twitter.

I love to improve myself every single day even if its just a tiny bit!

And as always: develop yourself!