Maintaining a strict Learning Curve

Don’t get overwhelmed with so many resources

As I write this, I have nothing less than 10 courses on Data science in Udemy alone, Combined with free micro-courses on Kaggle, Cognitive ai and a ton of free online pdfs. You would think I spend 20 hours daily learning… lol, I wish too.

Are you a newbie? Intermediate? whatever level you consider yourself to be in, it is very easy to get overwhelmed with so many resources. Perhaps as you read this you find yourself taking hours dabbling through various resources, and making very little progress? You find yourself constantly comparing with others? This is for you.

It really is good that you want to learn as much as you can, but the truth is that in programming whatever you learn, no matter how insignificant you feel it may be, the dots always connect. Let me cite an example;

A Few weeks ago I was doing some sentiment analysis on some data I had scraped online on various subjects and funny me I had to copy and paste a line of code for all of these subjects (25 of them), crazy uh? Yeah, I know too. Some weeks later I was to do something similar, but during that period between when I had done the first tedious task and the new similar task I was to execute, I was having this feeling I had not learned enough, at least that was what I thought at that moment until I was faced with a current similar issue, interestingly I completely automated the process this time using the Purrr package in R (I had learned it a few days back).

Building that automated process made me feel stupid (because I did a tedious job the first time) and at the same time proud (because I was obviously better than I was few weeks back).

Here is where I’m driving at, when I thought I didn’t know anything, I really was learning and a lot at that, why I felt I didn’t know well enough was

• I was comparing my growth to the vast library of resources I was yet to exhaust
• Looking at the awesome things others were building and comparing myself with them

So what did I do to overcome this constant overwhelming feeling of I want to learn it all, why can’t I be like him/her? I looked at my vast resources, picked one and shut all others out (for now), I now focus on one at a time and I came to terms with the fact that those I was comparing myself with, they could do what they did because of the task at hand and how much time they had to prepare. I now convince myself that I wouldn’t perform any less given the task they had, the resources and time to prepare.

The only person you should try to be better than is who you were yesterday.” — Unknown

Stop comparing with other people, don’t measure yourself by other people’s strength, by what they can do and you can’t. You are your own measurement tape. Master thyself.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power. — Lao Tzu

Conclusion

Is this a call to relent? No! rather a way to shift your focus from so many and take it one at a time. Stop building a roof and the foundation simultaneously. Taking these little steps, you reduce your burnout rate, you learn more in-depth and become more thorough in your learning curve.