How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

If anyone is struggling to stay on top of notetaking or organizing their life digitally, I highly recommend org-mode and deft-mode.

One day I will blog about what org-mode has done for my life, but for now just accept my word: I have typed tens of thousands of words into each of EverNote, Tomboy, and TiddlyWiki. I attempted to use Remember the Milk, Google Tasks, and other todo apps for years. I also unsuccessfully struggled to recall information by bookmarking and tagging three thousand websites in delicious. Nothing worked and I was on the verge of giving up for sanity's sake and just emailing myself reminders and notes.

Then I discovered org-mode and took control. I can recall and store any information in seconds. Org mode can do absolutely everything. Ask and you shall learn.

I went through a similar exercise last week.

I'm trying to leave the place I'm working, and I'm mostly concentrating on places that are a little above my weight class (because if I'm going to try and get a new job, I don't want to go work at the half-dozen places that do the exact same level of work that I do. I've had a few jobs not pan out, so I wanted to take a step back and rethink things)

So I started an Omni-Focus project, which I called Me 2.0 (although I could have used any of the myriad project-tracking applications, or just a text editor)

In it I started trying to list all the things I wanted to learn. I noticed when I finished that it was predominantly a list of books to read (many of which have exercises that I want to make sure I go through and actually complete).

I noticed that some of them have dependencies on other ones (so I linked those tasks) but others I can start working on in parallel. We'll see how well I can stick to it.

Just writing it all out was a helpful exercise though. There's something freeing about having specific tasks, and not just nebulous concepts.

>Instead of trying to do Deliberate Practice, I’d fool myself into thinking I was investing my time wisely by reading blog posts and examples but not actually doing much of anything.

That is one reason for serious learning I use textbooks. The book itself helps structure your learning, it is easy to keep track of how much you have covered, and commitment is simpler, since you can just commit to finishing the book.

It doesn't help as much though for longer term learning; I have a tendency to procrastinate between books, and often switch directions and even fields of study. On the other hand, the OP's "learning list" doesn't help much with that either.

Much better than my lazy default which involves leaving relevant tabs open on my browser ...

So I just did this exercise now, and at the risk of overtooling I'm going to keep a detailed list of the precise things I did to learn each thing. Because otherwise, I have that same tendency to convince myself I've spent 2 hours learning more about graphical models by browsing some blog posts, or about cooking by looking through some cooking blogs but not actually taking the 2 hours to flail at bread-making. I'm not talking about every day recounting what I did, I think that's overly verbose, but just as a list under each of my goals that details each specific accomplishment.

I have an elaborate system using text-files and tags/subtags, evolved over the last 5-6 years.

I keep track of a lot of things:

-expenses

-gym sessions

-leads for my magazine

-startup ideas

-personal development insights

-diary entries

-brainstorms

-quotes (see this: http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-for-some-tiny-web-softw...)

-stuff I should read later (but almost never get around to)

-ideas for lyrics

-fragments for various novels I am working on

-various biometric data (morning weight, stuff like that)

-TODO

-plans (I do try to aggregate all of these into a standalone "plan file" since it's such a crucial function of my administrative system)

-and a bunch of other things I can't recall right now. Let's just say I generate a relatively huge amount of notes every single day.

So a typical temp file might contain some thing like this:

itm: IT9: recruit: foobar foobarsson

itm: todo: find logo designer

todo: buy anal lube

planfile: BHAGs: $big_hairy_audacious_goal

planfile: schemes: $insert_greasy_scheme

diary: 5/12 2011: went to Footown today, got wasted

expenses: 5/12 2011: cat food 10 kr | alcohol 300 kr | anal lube 49 kr

lyrics: $lyrics / $more_lyrics / $even_more_lyrics

idea: business: hamburger earmuffs

read: http://reddit.com/r/foo/whatever

insight: $deep_insight

brainstorm: what topics should I learn in 2012?

I dump all of this piecemeal into temporary text files which I then transfer periodically to a central place. I used to go through them and sort everything into separate piles, but at this point that would probably be a full time job.

If I need to find something these days, pretty much the only way is to use grep and hope that I tagged something the right way (sometimes I am too lazy and just dump crap in there untagged).

If you think it sounds like I run my life like a gigantic byzantine bureacracy, you would be right. But at the same time, it's probably a huge net-win for me in the long run as it allows me to keep track of stuff on a scale that would be impossible otherwise.

I would like to write some software that could parse my notes and make my life easier. Anyone else in the same boat?

I see Vim on that list.

Best way to learn Vim is to get stuck without internet for 30 minutes. Once you explore every avenue of entertainment in your documents/downloads folders, you remember `$ vimtutor` and just have a go at it. Tried and true.

This is a great idea. As a step two, I would group them into categories (JavaScript, self-improvement, etc.) and then figure out time needed to become proficient in each one. Vim, for example, takes about 5 days to really get the hang of it, to pick up the essentials. The other tricks come later. CoffeeScript can become familiar after a weekend or two. A few of the others, like Arduino, take a little longer.

This is what I do when I want to learn things. Of course, I have a problem limiting it to programming. My list often includes stuff like "Thai cuisine" and "German" and "Celtic mythology".

The hardest part, in my opinion, is not tracking NEW things to learn, but tracking things to improve on.

I don't really focus on "topics", I pick something I really want to build then try and work out what the best suited tools and technologies are for that objective, then take it from there.

For my web startup idea this was Grails, because I work with Java in my day job and like the Rails convention over configuration philosophy. This leads to other areas like modern JavaScript frameworks.

For my video game idea it's Unity, for mostly productivity related reasons. This leads to JavaScript again (doesn't everything these days), C# and programmable shaders.

I don't want to spend my valuable time learning the latest new thing just for the sake of it. (I see loads of 'weekend projects' on here using Node/Backbone/Redis that seem to be this kind of thing). I want an immediate real-world application. I want something that will help me solve problems and smash my personal deadlines down like a pile driver. :)

I have a lot of non-IT stuff that I'd like to know at one time - so, in a spirit of sharing our TOKNOW lists, my current one:

    - Economics
      - Micro
      - Macro
      - "Applied" - stock markets, credits, all that stuff - how it works, etc. (I know almost nothing about it)
    - Knowledge about societies - how they form, how they function, etc.
    - Bayesian probability (working on it right now, thanks to AI Class), set theory, maybe category theory
    - Control theory (I do really, really regret I didn't care about this at university)
    - Biology
      - Genetics 101 & blood groups (I forgot all this stuff since high school)
      - Nutrition 101
    - First aid
    - Pretty much whole physics (Feynman's lectures sitting on my bookshelf and waiting ;))
    - History
      - of civilization, especially Roman history
      - of science, technology and enterpreneurship
      - of modern geopolitical structures
    - Geography
      - World energy infrastructure
      - How many resources do we have, where they are, how fast we use them
      - How the world trade works
    - Literature
      - "Homeless People"
      - "Crime and Punishment"
      - ... and then some other good books

And that's really just (non-IT) knowledge; there are also some skills I'd like to acquire that are not listed. I know some (most?) of that stuff was covered in high school, however I somehow missed it all then (I didn't care / school wasn't really helpful to make me care). This list reflects some topics I spend time thinking about / worrying about, but at some point I realized I should either sit down and learn some of it, or stop caring that much about things I don't understand.

From the technical side (which is actually the main topic ;)), I keep all of this in plain text; it used to be .txt files somewhere on my hard drive, now it's in Org Mode.

In my case, I try to keep realistic dates of completion (considering that I'm no longer an undergraduate and right now I can focus in any topic I want.)

Sometimes it's difficult to get things done if you don't have someone behind telling you what to do next; but I realized, that if you master this skill, you are at a whole new level. I think this is the type of motivation that keeps moving the PhD students or the entrepreneurs.

At the moment I'm learning how to program for the Android platform, and this mobile paradigm has open my mind for a lot of things. I really want to pursue more this area.

I think it's a great idea that if you don't understand something in a book, tutorial, etc. investigate about those topics. But, never lose focus in what you are trying to accomplish in the first time; I know that sometimes it's tempting to keep checking that Math theory and things like that.

At the end, knowledge is another tool to get the job done.

Inspirational articles go into either Instapaper (URLs) or iBooks (PDFs), I read through these when I'm offline. If they sound interesting, I make a note in OmniFocus' inbox. (The new 'Share' button in Instapaper can do this automatically.)

When processing OF, I turn those things into a task in "Weekend Projects" - a list of things I want to toy around with for a weekend (or any other two free days).

When I hve started said projects, I flesh them out to be normal GTD projects and see where they go from there.

If something gets stuck and obsoleted before I have a chance to work on it again, I kill it in my Weekly Review.

GTD. \o/

I keep all of my ebooks in my ipad and have library, active, and completed sections. I have four books in my active section that I read through as time goes on and every time I complete a topic I pop a book from active onto completed and push another into my active section. I found I was shifting too quickly between books whenever I got disinterested or the material got tough and I would never pick them up again until weeks later which gave me very little context for what I was learning. Finishing books and being able to review them gives you much more closure on topics and makes you retain the material better. By having four I still allow myself to shuffle a bit but it reminds me to force my way though the hard parts when a book's been sitting there too long. Maybe once a month I'll map out my interests and try and find books pertaining to them and add them to my collection. Most of the major publishers have good daily deals on ebooks, and my library has a really good collection of hard copy books when I'm strapped for cash.

I did this about three months ago and have been laser focused on learning ever since instead of spreading myself too thin as it's too easy in this industry. I hope this doesn't sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but I genuinely hope everyone takes 10 minutes out of their week to do this for themselves. I can attest to this simple exercise being very much worth it.

I've written several of these lists in Evernote over the past few years. It's always interesting to go back and look at them to see how my interests have changed over time. Three years ago, my number one priority was to learn how to write short stories (and eventually a novel). Now my number one priority is to learn Clojure (and a handful of other technologies).

What I do is revise the list every week and see what things on the list I still want to learn, so I practice the ones that have prevailed more than 2 weeks and the other ones I kinda question them. What has worked for me this year is always ask "WHY ?" , Why do I want to learn A, or B, and if the reason is strong enough then the item goes in ink.

I have been using Trello since it launched. It works great for managing my reading list.

Really timely article. Thanks.

December is a good time to re-evaluate these sorts of things, and to book time for the ones requiring more effort (learning vim?) since many people have a lull at work at this time of year.

My own contribution to the OP is to encourage everyone to also create a "Pass" list of topics you had on your list but have chosen not to pursue (example in the OP was Shopify templates).

I find I need a list like that to stop my mind from revisiting those "I should learn" topics that I actually don't want to learn.

I use Evernote to track everything, including this.

I dump everything looks cool into a "maybe" notebook. Before I add anything I search to see if there's a related note. This lets me aggregate and if I sort on "last updated date" I tend to get a good idea of what's important to me.

From time to time I go over the list and see if stuff can and should be purged.

Interesting idea. I'll list down what I want to learn here then:

- Python - Django - jQuery - Bash - XHTML and CSS - Physics (currently learning at college) - Mathematics (same) - Psychology - Philosophy - Sci-fi reading - Islamic finance - World history

Now that I look at the whole picture, most of the topics are unrelated, save the first two..

I order all my 'stuff to learn' under a category in my Getting Things Done (GTD) workflow. I use Due Today for Android and Toodledo online (they sync automatically), and a bunch of paper scraps to transfer from whereever it is that I want to record things until I can enter them into the One True repository.

Back in September I went through a similar exercise and wrote down some details about it here:

http://johndbritton.com/2011/09/30/consciously-deciding-to-l...

Actually one thing that really distracts you from actually getting the list done is blogging about it! :-)

Also doing this kind of things, but with local wiki system(Golum based) and shared via DropBox.

I don't track anything. I just jump in topics I want to learn at any time.