Learning to Learn
Learning is a tricky thing. I mean, we all know how to learn, right? You learned how to walk, talk, read, hopefully. However, not everyone learns the same way or within the same context. I’ve had friends who were horrible in school but insanely smart and have gone on to do some amazing things. I think where it gets tricky is where we say, “someone has to learn this way”. So for me, the following is how I learn best.
I’m a super organized person who likes to see and collect everything that comes out of the websites and content creators. It helps me digest it a bit better and saves time for me. I don’t have to go track down a million things from a million sources. All the things I’m interested in and want to learn about, I make come to me through a select few tools. I’ll share those with you and then suggest some of those resources.
Feedly
My problem has been, “I want information about various subjects but don’t have the time to visit all those websites”. This is where Feedly comes in. I’ve used a lot of other RSS readers in the past and Feedly is the best, in my opinion.
What is an RSS reader you ask? Basically, at its core is you can pull in new posts and content from a website in HTML and simply restyles it. So you can focus on the content and so you aren’t distracted by the overall website You can read straight from Feedly, save for later, go to that website to read, or use any other integrations that it offers.
This app is basically a digital, well, pocket. Anything you come across on the web, you can save to your pocket account to read later. Sometimes I use it to save a product I was interested in but didn’t have time to look at, or a webpage, but mainly articles, blogs, and videos.
You can get even more organized and apply tags to your posts to categorize. I’ve also used this feature organizing things I’ve already read so that I can come back and reference later. Pocket also has a plugin for Chrome and it’s built into Firefox Quantum’s new browser address bar. Super simple to use for things you just don’t have time to read or view right then and there.
Trello
I hope most people know about Trello but probably haven’t used it. Trello is a project management app that organizes cards in columns or “swim lanes”.
A good example would be that maybe you have a backlog column that has all your to-dos in it. When you are ready to work on that to-do or project, you can move it from that column to the next column in your workflow, like “started” or “in progress”. From there, on to “finished” when you have completed it.
For me, I like the organizational aspect of how Trello is set up. I can see everything in one view and quickly move things into different workflows for better management of what I need to get done. I also add notes to each to-do or links that help me to understand what I’m trying to get done.
The workflow
I use Feedly for adding all the websites and content I want to learn about or stay up to date on and then when I have downtime, I’ll read through them later.
I set up Feedly in its settings to “mark as read on scroll” so if I scroll past it, it’s no longer “unread”. By default, as you scroll through your content, it doesn’t mark anything as read, until you click on a piece of content.
All of my websites I’ve added to Feedly are organized in folders based on subject. Tech, Design, News, Sports, Culture, Finance, etc. When I’m scrolling through Feedly I usually look based on the subject and not “All” so I know the context of the list of content a bit better.
If I find something that I want to read I’ll usually open them in the read view and click on the “pocket” integration. You can integrate your pocket account to Feedly to save content to read later. I hardly ever read things straight from Feedly because I either don’t have the time at the moment or want to be in a learning mode so I’m less distracted for later.
After I’ve “read” or scroll through all my content in Feedly, it’s on to Pocket. Then I can read the article or blog I saved without the distractions of heading to that website. However, there are rare times when Pocket missed some piece of content that was in the article if it uses some javascript magic. For example, Feedly doesn’t bring in Codepen examples, sometimes certain images are left out. But overall it catches all of the written content.
I use Trello for subjects I’m learning. So I have some columns set up for JS, React, Vue, and other subjects. I save tutorials, classes, or longer read articles here so I can work through them on a Saturday when I’m learning about that subject. This is helpful for me so I can focus on one subject while also seeing what other things I need to get to and learn in the future.
My Feeds
Not only do I like to learn about design, dev, and tech pertaining to my career, but I also want to stay up to date with the news locally and nationally, culture, and sports. To give you a look at the websites I regularly read, here is a list:
Business & Finance
Culture & Life
Design & Dev
News
Sports
Tech
How do you learn and what works for you?
