Don't Fall Into This Learning Trap

As programmers, we often fall prey to this trap.

We’re constantly learning new frameworks, new languages, new programming paradigms and more.

As a result, we end up with hundreds of open tabs. We pile up books, tutorials and blog posts to try to control our fear of falling behind.

But the dilemma is, we aren’t actually making progress despite feeling productive.

This trap is known as the Collector’s Fallacy¹.

Being busy is not the same as being productive

We get the feeling that we are being productive when we collect because it feels like we are making progress towards learning.

But being busy is not the same as being productive. Not all activities hold the same weight.

Collecting articles take time. Time that could have been spent learning. Time that we could have use more effectively.

So why do we collect?

Our brain gets a boost of dopamine each time we discover new content. Which encourages us to collect even more books, videos and tutorials.

Dopamine is what motivates us to act. It’s a neural transmitter that emits pleasure signals designed to get you to take action and motivate you to repeat behavior.

The latest research shows that we release the greatest amount of dopamine during the anticipation stage². More than when we get the actual reward.

It’s this anticipation of the idea that we will learn a lot from these resources that spikes our dopamine levels up. Therefore, when we see articles, books, movies and other content our brain is flooded with pleasure signals that nudges us to collect.

And so, dopamine will be released in response to a signal from the environment, a signal that tells the brain, here’s an opportunity for you to maximize future resources. - Daniel Z. Lieberman

We are stimulated by the environment which tells our brain that there is an opportunity for us to maximize future resources. In cave man times, this was an important signal to ensure our survival.

But today we have the opposite problem. We have more opportunities and more resources than we could possibly process.

We end up collecting more than we can process and burn out. Or worse, we forget what we collected and let it sit idle while we continue to pile up more.

Stop And Ask Why

Stop! Instead of collecting more content, first ask yourself why am I collecting this? What goal do I want to achieve?

For example, you might be collecting books on algorithms because you want to improve your coding skills or pass a course.

Next, be selective. Don’t just mindlessly save everything, otherwise you’ll drown yourself in a sea of noise. Even if you manage to save everything, you’ll find it difficult to find the important things when you need it.

Ask a friend for recommendations. They can help you filter for quality resources like blogs, books and videos that are worthy of checking out.

If you don’t know anybody knowledgeable in that subject area then do a quick search on the internet to find recommendations from credible blogs.

Having a lot of resources to learn from is helpful but only if it is high quality and matches your goals. Otherwise, you’ll get stuck in a new rabbit hole everytime you discover something new to save.

Our hours are limited, so even if we save everything we won’t have enough time to read or study it all. Conversely, saving it all can affect our performance by wearing us down with thoughts of stress and anxiety. When we start something but haven’t finished our mind is constantly thinking about it in the background³.

With limited time, we need to manage these time draining activities by ensuring we stay on track.

Take a moment and try being more aware of your actions in the present moment. Be intentional by slowing down. Ask yourself whether what your trying to achieve matches your current beliefs, values and goals.

Stay on track with your beliefs, values and goals

Your goals could act as a guiding force to help you make quick or difficult decisions decisively. You could use your goals to influence your decision on what to save and consume as a priority. Your values can also help you weed out what to spend time on.

For example, do you really want to spend another 15 minutes on another cat video that YouTube has recommended you? Or would you rather take 15 minutes to watch a video on algorithms which matches your goal?

Now that you know why your collecting and you have a goal to guide you. You can now decide what you want to do with that book, article or video.

Ask yourself, does saving that article for later help bring me closer to my goals?

Does it add value to my life?

If it’s a no, then disregard it, don’t save it.

If it’s a yes, then go ahead and save it.

Saving is just the first step. In order to learn we must actively engage with the content.

Knowing is not the same as understanding

In order to utilize what you learnt, you need to master the concept and ideas behind it. Just because you can regurgitate something does not mean you understand the ideas behind it.

Try to test your understanding by applying the ideas behind the text. You can implement the idea in your own project, teach a friend, or blog about what you just learnt. If you don’t understand something, you won’t be able to explain or apply it therefore you will quickly discover any gaps in your understanding.

Taking the easy way out or the path of least resistance⁴ is tempting. It’s easier to just read or follow along the tutorial without actually doing the work. But avoid this at all costs. By taking the easy way out we miss the opportunity to check our understanding. We won’t be able to gauge whether we truely understood what we just learnt. You might get the false feeling you know it even though you don’t and fall into the familiarity trap.

The takeaway

Collecting can give us a false sense of mastery, leading us to think we are making progress. By spending a lot of time collecting, we are more susceptible to fall into the familiarity trap. We may falsely end up thinking we know the ideas behind a concept just because we have seen it before — when in fact we don’t.

To help avoid the trap:

• know your goals and be selective in what you save
• avoid taking the easy way out
• engage with the content to test your understanding
• gauge your understanding and mastery of the concepts by applying what you learnt
• try teaching a friend, blog about it or start a new project