I love learning things. I could spend my whole life reading and researching stuff and I probably wouldn’t get bored. But that’s not how things get done. You sometimes have to take action and do something with the things you know. That is, there is a trade-off between learning more to make things better and having the actual time to do things. Mongtaigne states in his Essays that the youth (until around 20) is the time to learn and the rest of your life is time to do. I, as a learning enthuisast find this depressing. However, it seems like there is at least some truth in this. Also, most great people did their greatest achievements in their 20s or 30s.

I obviously don’t agree that you should stop learning but I think we should be selective in what we spend our time learning because time is precious. For instance, should you learn every single detail of a tool or read every single chapter of a book. Or should you learn the bare minimum to solve your appaerent needs. I think neither approach is very good. So how much learning is enough is my opinion?

There is one rule that I came up with: Don’t make mindless choices.

Don’t make mindless choices.

I think we should understand the system and the basic underlying concepts properly. We shouldn’t copy and paste a solution without understanding the parameters, implications, side effects, etc. (Unless it is a well known black-boxed solution). Doing something like somebody else does without considering other options is a mindless choice.

I mean

• Don’t use algorithms without understanding why they work.
• Don’t use a system that just works and you’re afraid to touch.
• You don’t have to know the parts that you won’t use.

I recommend this because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to modify the solution or come up with a better solution yourself.