This Mistake Cost Me Weeks of My Time Learning

Since you joined in to this newsletter I’d say your already in the tech twitter community, and as much as its beneficial to be in a community everything have its own downsides.

Being in a community exposes you to other people and you’re seeing their progress and their achievements everyday that they’ve been sharing in public.

Since my first few months of twitter and just started my web dev journey seeing those progress and achievements made me feel like im being left behind because they’ve been doing great stuffs while im still learning the very basics.

So what did i do?

I spend all of my free time learning.

Yep everyday all my free time is spent learning.

For weeks I didn’t take much breaks because I wanted to finish the course fast. Since learning is a good thing some might say doing that is gonna payoff but actually it didn’t atleast for me.

I’m too focused on progressing faster than learning it self and I was always tired everyday and im not that happy that im doing good progress because i still feel like im left behind.

So yeah i finished a 60+ hour javascript course within a month its fast. I was happy when i finished it except i already forgot almost every content inside that course.

In other words weeks of my time has been wasted, i tried to visit those lessons and nothing comes back it’s slipped out of my head already.

One day i just stopped on comparing my progress to other devs and instead i’d just be happy for them with their achievements.

What happened after that?

I started appreciating my progress, and even though there are times where i only spent 2-3 hours learning or doing project I am still happy because i started seeing my progress that im actually doing just fine.

I felt more free and don’t feel the need to rush anymore because others are already achieving and doing great stuffs.

After a while it payed off, i got my first job offer and started at my first job this January 2023 as a front-end developer.

We are humans

Our brains get tired when its been used too much and its gonna need a break to recharge and process what you’ve just learned so it can take in more information. So spending all your free time just learning straight is not a good idea.

Its much better to learn productively 4 hours a day than spending all your free time learning straight and not doing anything other than that just to finish a course as soon as possible and catch up with others. ( its not healthy too )

What do I recommend?

- Don’t learn straightly for hours, take a break about 5-10 min after each lesson drink some water move your body.
- Instead of trying to rush so you can finish a course asap, just learn consistently and you’ll get to your goal in no time.
- Use others as inspiration to keep going on your journey instead of comparing your progress to them.
- If you want to compare, compare your progress to your past self instead.

That’s it for now, I hope you enjoyed reading this one.

See you again soon,
Ali