As a programmer you are often required to read technical books to gather knowledge about a particular topic. Reading technical books is an especially tough task because not only are they extremely long but are generally quite boring, to be honest. The very act of reading becomes a chore for someone who isn’t a habitual reader and the fact that you are required to retain most of the information adds on to this difficulty thus, increasing the chances that you would give up.

Even though there are a large number of MOOCs available for us to choose from, reading a book never goes out of fashion. When you make such a big commitment of time and resources it becomes very important to do so in an effective manner.

Habitualize

While reading a huge book it becomes necessary that you turn reading into a habit. Designate a specific time and place where you will read the book. Try to decide the number of pages or the amount of time you are going to read each day.

I especially find it more useful to make my reading goals based on time. My reading habit consists of reading a book for 2 Pomodoro sessions before going to bed each night. You can read more about how to make habits that last here.

The important take away is that you should try to internalize the act of reading as much as possible. It is not important whether you read at night or read first thing in the morning so long as you are able to minimize the friction associated with building a habit.

The Feynman Technique

The Feynman Technique is a learning technique which can be used to learn almost anything. Programming concepts can sometimes be difficult to grasp, applying the Feynman Technique to master the basics would put you in a position where you will find newer concepts building on what you’ve already learned. The Feynman Technique has proven effective time and again in understanding concepts.

You can also take notes and highlight important points so that you can come back at it again. One reason why fantasy books are popular is that it paints a picture around you and when it is backed with effective writing, makes it easier to visualize. You should take a moment and reflect upon what you have read and visualize the concepts to solidify your understanding.

Apply the knowledge

If there’s one thing you can take away from this article, it is this. Reading a book about programming would only get you so far. In order to go a level higher, it is essential that you apply what you’ve learned. It is one thing to know what class and objects are and completely different to actually use classes in your code.

Write the code samples shown in the book on your own. Do the exercises given at the end of each chapter. Take on a side project to apply the concepts you’ve read. Whatever it is practise what you’ve read by actually sitting down in front of the computer and doing stuff. At the end of the day people want to see what you have done with the knowledge.

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

- Anton Chekhov

Some Unpopular Advise

While it is important that you should try to see a book through, it is sometimes better to leave it if you feel that you are not benefiting from it. It is entirely possible that no matter how great a book is or how many people recommend it, the content that it offers may not be entirely digestible for you. It is often better to take up another book that is better suited for you.

Also, don’t be afraid to skip certain sections of the book. It is not necessary to read a book cover to cover, especially in the case of technical books. You can very easily skip those parts which you already know or/and don’t need to know right now.

Stay Motivated

Do not feel intimidated by the sheer size of the book. Congratulate yourselves every time you finish a chapter or are able to understand a difficult topic. Doing so will ensure that you do not give up half way through the book.

Find study groups. Talk to friends about the things you’ve learned from the book. If it’s necessary isolate yourself, but do not shy away when you wish to engage. If you are having a tough time with a book, try to read a lighter, less intense book(even fiction, if that’s what you like),in the meantime.

Reading is a cornerstone habit. When one is in a field as demanding and dynamic as Computer Science, books serve as an vital resource to keep oneself updated. Hopefully, this article might have helped you get back at a technical book which was a long overdue or might have helped you learn how to effectively read technical books.

Through The Habitual Programmer, I wish to help you build the necessary habits to slowly but significantly improve your programming skills.

Small habits aimed at bringing about a 1% increase in your proficiency could compound over time to bring massive change. After all, we are a product of our habits.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

How to read Technical Books was originally published in The Habitual Programmer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.“

— Benjamin Franklin

We live in a knowledge-centric world. In such a society where unlimited supply of information is available to everyone, the man who truly understands the information in front of him is at an advantage.

We’ve all heard that “knowledge is power” but rarely do we realize that knowledge is not just the accumulation of information. The gifts of knowledge are bestowed upon only those who fully comprehend the meaning and nature of that information. The truly knowledgeable are not the ones who’ve read a thousand books, but rather the ones who’ve been able to understand them.

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein

In order to escape the never ending cycle of reading — forgetting and re-reading, we can make use of the Feynman Technique, which is a method with which we can learn almost anything.

This technique is named after the Nobel Prize winning Physicist — Richard P. Feynman. Feynman was not only a exceptional Physicist, but also a great teacher. He was notoriously famous for asking people to explain things to him in a simpler manner in order to find whether they truly know what they are talking about.

It is a simple technique and can be divided into 4 simple steps:

1.Gather the information.

The first step is actually gaining information about the topic which you want to learn. Decide on a topic which you want to cover, then start reading books, journals or watching tutorials for the particular subject matter to gain information about the particular topic.

2. Teach it.

The next step is to actually try and teach the concept to someone else. For this, you can write what you’ve understood about the topic in plain and simple language. You could instead explain the concept out loud. Even better, you could mix the two approaches and write and speak about the concept just like a teacher does. The important think to remember is that you have to act as if you are explaining the concept to a kid or to someone who has no knowledge of the topic.

Pro Tip: If you know two languages, you can read in one and explain in the other.

3. Analyse and Optimize.

The next step is to find out the possible gaps in your understanding or topics over which you feel your understanding is not shaky. Once you have identified them, you should re-read the materials to cover up those gaps or ask from help in order to solidify your understanding. This step is extremely crucial and thus, one must remain honest to oneself. You should not act as if you’ve completely understood the topic when you can clearly see that you are iterating just the jargon you’ve memorized.

4. While Understanding!=100%

Repeat the above steps until you are comfortable with the concept. Carefully analyse the way you explain and find out areas where you can come with an even simpler explanation or an analogy the easily explains the topic.

Application

You can use the Feynman technique for almost any kind of learning, but as it is probably clear to you, it is a time consuming process.

If you are at the start of the semester and wish to do well this time in your exams, you can use the Feynman Technique to quite effectively improve your scores. But if you have an exam the next day and have started studying now, I would advise against using this technique. On the other hand though, if you’ve prepared well enough and want to test your preparation this method could work really well in highlighting the areas were you are a little weak.

Does the Feynman Technique even work?

No wonder you would be asking this question. Considering the simplicity of this method, one would be naturally tempted to ask if this actually works.

Speaking from my experience, I can assure you that this technique works like a charm. I used this technique while trying to learn Machine Learning. While I can say that I am no expert, but I am in a better position than where I would’ve been if I tried to go about the usual way of completing MOOCs and straight away trying to apply the concepts. While I do not say that the later technique is wrong or bad, but I see my friends trying that approach and building models without the slightest idea of why things are working( this is assuming things are actually working, which most of the time are not!).

The Semantic Memory is a type of Long Term Memory in which conceptual information is represented, including semantic(meanings) and lexical(word) information. The Feynman Technique helps in simplifying a concept so that you are no longer trying to build on top of shaky foundations and are actually able to understand the meaning of what you are trying to learn.

“You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts.”
― Richard P. Feynman

Through The Habitual Programmer, I wish to help you build the necessary habits to slowly but significantly improve your programming skills.

Small habits aimed at bringing about a 1% increase in your proficiency could compound over time to bring massive change. After all, we are a product of our habits.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

The Feynman Technique was originally published in The Habitual Programmer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As a kid, I aced (pretty much) in school. I wasn’t extraordinarily smart, nor did I study for exceptionally long hours. So, what actually got things rolling for an average student like me?

Okay, I won’t keep you guys guessing, the secret of my fairly successful school life was Pokemon.

The Habit Loop.

Each Habit starts with a Cue — which signals the brain to start a particular behaviour. The cue creates a craving which leads to the Routine — the action that is performed again and again, i.e the habitual behaviour. A vital part of the habit loop is the Reward stage — which is a positive reinforcement which tells the brain that the particular routine is worth remembering in the future.

Now coming back to how Pokemon was crucial for helping me in school. After returning from school (cue) I would immediately sit down to finish my homework and the supplementary reading task (routine). My mother wouldn’t allow me to watch TV without having first completed my homework. As soon as I completed my homework, I was allowed to watch my favourite cartoon, no prizes for guessing — Pokemon (the reward).

My determination to watch Pokemon got me into the habit of finishing my homework and studying. So here’s how you can build habits that last —

Become Self-aware.

You can’t really improve your life if you don’t even know the areas you wish to improve. Take a day or even a week to observe and keep a track of your daily activities. Try and find out the patterns that lead up to the bad habits.

Become aware of your weaknesses and strengths. Based on the log of your daily activities, track the times when you are most productive and also the moments when you stumble into your procrastination mode. Try to be as honest as possible with yourself. By doing this you would gain some valuable insights about your habits.

For example, with the help of this time logging technique, I was able to realise that after returning from college I wasted around 2 hours watching stupid television shows. On further reflection I understood that after I returned from college, I was very exhausted and would throw myself on the couch. Lying there on the couch I would unconsciously reach for the remote control for the television installed right in front of the couch.

Optimise Your Environment to be Conducive for Change.

Believe it or not, but majority of your cues are associated with our environment and surroundings. The way your environment is set up plays a huge role in which habits get embedded in your system.

Like in my case, the fact that the television was right in front of the couch, naturally inclined me to watch it. I made a few minor adjustments to tackle this problem. I made sure that the remote control was placed as far away from the couch as possible so that I needed to get up in order to fetch it. Also, I changed the direction of the couch so that it no longer faced the television.

When you include minor discomforts in the completion of a habit you make use of the Law of Least Resistance. Our body tries to conserve as much energy as possible and thus tries to follow the path which minimises the energy consumed. Having to get up and leave the comfort of the couch in order to get the remote soon became a big burden and I was gradually able to stop my habit of senseless streaming.

Similarly, if you wish to build a new habit, make it as easy as possible to start and make it a part of the flow of your life.

If you want to get in the habit of coding everyday, try to make sure the your laptop is as easily reachable. Keep it in sight. Place the text editor you use on the desktop. You could also make the text editor launch each time your laptop fires up. This way you can overcome the laziness of having to grab your laptop from your bedroom when you always study in the study-room. When the text editor launches automatically at start up, you get the cue that you should first practice coding.

Start Small.

Do you climb the ladder all rungs at once?

No, right? You climb one rung at a time. One small step at a time. Similarly, you do not go about forming a habit all at once. Habit formation is a process. Only if you consider a solidified habit to be a collective result of many small steps, will you be able to bring about some meaningful change.

Instead of trying to master a habit from the word go, make it easier to start and gradually optimise it to achieve the desired result.

Most people at the start of each year make an extensive list of habits they want to build. They start working on all of these habits at the same time. This often results in the person not being able to develop even one of the habits he set out to achieve.

What one could do instead is focus on one habit at a time. Only when that habit has developed can you shift your attention to building another habit. Start with a habit that has the maximum effect in achieving your goal and also helps you build other habits. Such a habit is called a Keystone Habit.

Leverage the power of a community.

Suppose you are brought up in a family where everyone loves reading. You find that you are encouraged and praised for reading books. So, building a habit of reading would be natural for you.

The kind of habits that is treated to be “normal” in your culture gets repeated and thus are easier to build. So, if you joined a community of programmers, and find everyone else on the same boat as you — trying to get better at programming, you would find it easier to build programming habits.

The community of like minded people gives you the sense that what you are doing is desirable. Not only do you get appreciation for the effort you put in, but also get the motivation when you are feeling down. This is immensely useful in the context of habit formation.

Reinforcement Learning.

An essential factor that helps solidify your habits is the rewards associated with them. If a habit is associated with a positive experience, it is more likely to get repeated, whereas if it is associated with an unpleasant experience the chances that you will repeat that behaviour is very small.

If you wish you build habits quickly, associate the act of doing a habit with an immediate reward. The reason why people do not exercise is that they do not see immediate results. It is not like one day you are Kevin Hart and after an intense session at the gym you turn into Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. It takes a long time before you get to see the results of exercising. Unfortunately, not all of us have the patience to wait for such results to surface up. Thus, if the results of an action are not immediate, habit formation becomes a painful job, whereas if the rewards come immediately, the habits get embedded quickly.

For example you can treat yourself with an ice-cream or an episode of Silicon Valley if you complete a chapter of a book you are using to learn Python. This way, you begin to associate the act of completing a chapter with a pleasant feeling. You will be more likely to continue the habit in anticipation of the reward you’ve set for yourself.

Through The Habitual Programmer, I wish to help you build the necessary habits to slowly but significantly improve your programming skills.

Small habits aimed at bringing about a 1% increase in your proficiency could compound over time to bring massive change. After all, we are a product of our habits.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

How to Build Habits That Last: was originally published in The Habitual Programmer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Where is a Habitual Programmer?

Habitual Programmers are a rare breed and are only found in places which fulfil two criteria — availability of high-speed internet and the lack of human interaction. They are almost always accompanied by their best friend — their laptop!

All throughout history, there have been numerous search operations to find these rare, mysterious creatures. The desire for a peaceful environment has forced these entities to hide in the dark corners of the world. So, these habitual programmers are now considered to be nothing but mythical creatures found only in the virtual dimension.

Okay. Now if you believed any of that and are probably thinking that you can never be a habitual programmer (or perhaps if you’re thinking of how foolish this all sounds), here’s some good news — Habitual Programmers are all around you. You can find them in your class in the form of that classmate who completes his programming assignment without fail. You can find them in your office in the form of that colleague who is always on the lookout to learn new programming concepts. Heck, you can even find them in your nearby park enjoying the beauty of nature (and perhaps thinking about how to debug their code). To cut to the chase — they are everywhere!

“I’m not a great programmer; I’m just a good programmer with great habits.”
― Kent Beck

Who is a Habitual Programmer?

Before describing who is a Habitual Programmer, let us understand what is a habit. Habits are the small decisions you make and actions you perform every day. To in other words, a habit is a routine or a behaviour that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.

Now, a Programmer is someone who is not only capable of writing code or building and designing software, but someone who desires to learn about new techniques, has the ability to think outside the box, knows how to communicate effectively while not compromising on his physical and mental well-being.

Thus, a Habitual Programmer is simply a person that relies on small achievable habits to constantly improve his programming proficiency. A Habitual Programmer is successful not because he is a programming genius but because the accumulative effect of his small habits morphed him into an individual capable of achieving massive results.

I’ll do you one better-Why is a Habitual Programmer?

Last year, my New Year’s Resolution was to improve as a Programmer. I started the year with my fuel tank filled with motivation. For the first week, I did everything-I started doing projects, started taking MOOCs and started going to meetups. Everything went great for the first week. The following weeks were a disaster as I felt exhausted and gave up on my resolution altogether.

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.

This year, with the experiences of last year, I have again decided to embark on this journey of improving as a programmer. If you’re on the same boat and want to improve as a programmer, remember that improvement is a marathon and not a 100m sprint and you cannot expect to keep moving ahead with motivation as the sole fuel to push you forward.

Habits are what you do repeatedly. These repeated actions mould your identity as a Programmer and as you start feeling more confident about your skills, the more likely you are to continue on the journey of improvement.

If you ever think that Programming is difficult or that you are not meant for this field, you will appreciate the concept of Habitual Programming. You will see that with deliberate practice and minor adjustments in your behaviours to remove the bad habits and replace them with good habits, you will soon be able to exponentially increase your programming skills.

Through The Habitual Programmer, I wish to help you build the necessary habits to slowly but significantly improve your programming skills.

Small habits aimed at bringing about a 1% increase in your proficiency could compound over time to bring massive change. After all, we are a product of our habits.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

The Habitual Programmer was originally published in The Habitual Programmer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.