Those in technical industries are easily overwhelmed with the plethora of opportunities to learn and use new technologies. I frequently hear people ask how to go about deciding what to learn next. It’s a question I struggled with for a long time too.
Combine this with a passion and excitement for learning and you’ll find someone who is constantly juggling new technologies like hot potatoes. Seemingly never making progress with any of them.
Or on the other end of the spectrum, you’ll find those that are afraid to make any investment in learning for fear that what they learn will become outdated before they can put it to use.
Neither situation is productive.
So how does one combat this?
First, do you really think what you know determines your worth? Or, is it what you can accomplish?
You don’t need to know every new technology. Instead, you can focus on what’s holding you back and how you can invest in working smarter.
So that means, if you already have a means to do something and there’s no substantial benefit to learning an alternative, don’t invest in the alternative.
Find comfort in not knowing something that won’t lead to a substantial improvement.
If you get excited about a new technology, ask yourself, what about this will allow me to substantially improve the work I do? If you don’t know, don’t invest in it.
When you seek improvement, consider alternative technologies on a high level but don’t get caught up in the nuances. And when you do pick a technology to learn, don’t fret the alternatives you could’ve chosen. So long as you improve, do you really care if there was another path?