Some Learning Advice From a Data Dork

Call me a party animal. Yesterday I joked about spending my Friday night like James Bond, but last night I actually did.

Partied a little too hard…

Just joking.

But I did have a family party, so I didn’t spend too much time programming or doing math.

That doesn’t mean I did nothing.

After nearly two weeks, I finally finished the data structures and algorithms book I’ve been reading.

The final two chapters were about some good-looking topics called graphs and heaps.

Originally I planned on talking about what these two data structures are and some common uses of them. But I’m not doing that. You can read about it on thousands of different blog posts.

Instead, I’m writing about the realization I had at the end of the book…

While studying data structures and algorithms over the last weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time recreating classes and navigating some tricky LeetCode problems.

Two weeks isn’t enough time to become a pro.

I know that.

But I’ve built a sturdy foundation that’ll support the rest of my programming studies. Even though that sounds great, it wasn’t enough at first.

My biggest weakness is losing focus and wanting to learn more. I’d learn a skill or idea to the point I aimed for, and instead of moving on to something more useful, the data dork in me would want to double down and keep going.

Once I finished this book, part of me wanted to buy another one about data structures and algorithms to keep learning.

But that’s a terrible idea. Absolutely TERRIBLE.

Why?

Because I already hit my goal. I’ve learned enough to make other (more important) programming topics easier to learn.

So doubling down on data structures and algorithms would just be me procrastinating.

Enter my big lesson for you…

Don’t learn without a purpose.

When you’re learning something new, have a purpose for learning it. You’ll never know everything, so it’ll be easy for you never to stop learning and moving on to other topics you need to know.

The best minds in our world constantly learn.

But that’s not enough.You have to know when to stop learning one topic and move on to something else.