10 Ways To Inspire a Habit of Learning
Ten starting points for building a learning habit outside of work:
-
Learn new languages and frameworks. New skills stretch how you think. Keep a running list of languages, tools and frameworks you want to learn, and set goals to master them.
-
Invest in in-demand skills. Unsure what to learn? Look at what interesting job postings ask for, or follow current industry trends and demand.
-
Read books. They let you reuse other people’s hard-won lessons and mistakes without starting from scratch. (Lau suggests learning to speed read.)
-
Join a discussion group. Lau cites Benjamin Franklin’s “club of mutual improvement” — friends meeting every Friday to debate morals, politics and natural philosophy. Book clubs and reading groups serve the same purpose today.
-
Attend talks, conferences and meetups.
-
Build and maintain a strong network. The more people you meet, the more serendipitous opportunities appear.
“Lucky people dramatically increase the possibility of a lucky chance encounter by meeting a large number of people in their daily lives.” — Richard Wiseman, The Luck Factor
-
Follow bloggers who teach.
-
Write to teach. Explaining ideas to others deepens your own understanding and exposes the gaps you didn’t realise you had. It also forces reflection on what you’ve learned. (Starting a blog is a good forcing function.)
-
Tinker on side projects. Even non-engineering ones sharpen skills in areas you don’t normally touch at work.
-
Pursue what you love. Replace passive time (aimless TV or web-surfing) with active time on things you actually care about.
Source
Edmond Lau, The Effective Engineer, Ch. 2.