Yes, there is school and college and all that stuff, but I feel like I really learn things best when I choose to do it on my own.

Here are some ways to keep your brain active.

Go Build Something

In the Maker spirit, go build something. Anything, really. Find a project, as big or small as you like, that you would like to see done. Maybe something you wish you had been able to find. Like a simple utility to X, or a script that automated Y.

It doesn’t really matter if you don’t know anything about the subject. I didn’t know anything about running a web server when I started, but I learned.

So pick a goal, then start learning. Once you have decided that your goal is something you want to do, don’t give up. Just don’t. On the other hand, if you realize your goal isn’t that important, then feel free to move on to something else.

This is part of my goals for creating this website. I want to create the references and tools that I wish I had been able to find on the internet. Maybe some other people have been looking for them too, and I can help them.

Need some ideas? Try this list.

Wikipedia

It is the book of knowledge, after all.

Seriously, though the academics might complain about “anyone can edit it,” the Wikipedians are pretty good at keeping such a gigantic reference up to date. There are plenty of times I skip the search engine and just go straight to Wikipedia. And when I want an introduction to a topic, I go read the Wikipedia article.

RSS Feeds

I have quite a few RSS feeds. You can see the list at code.aidanmontare.net.

Part of that is necessity – I manage my own server, and so I need to know about the most recent security news relating to the services I run.

But reading blogs is also a really good way to learn new things. I subscribe to all the WordPress development blogs, which helps me learn more about the internals of WordPress, and even learn a little PHP.

Not every blog is going to teach you much, but if you look hard enough, you will start to find that there are some really good writers out there.

RSS feeds are nice. They are simple, decentralized, and don’t try to shove “social” down your throat. All they do is let you read, and maybe learn something. I realize for some the idea of using RSS feeds seem ancient, but it gets the job done.

Reading

Just in general. Really, many of the things I do to learn can be summarized as reading.

The internet gives us tons of knowledge on nearly everything. The problem used to be that it was hard to find what we needed, but search engines are getting better.

The real problem is that people don’t read. To really learn something, you can’t just skim over things looking for an answer. You actually have to read.

That might mean going to a project’s website and reading the entire documentation. It might mean learning a bit about the development framework or programming language something was created with as you try to debug it. It might mean a lot of work, but at the end of the day, you will have learned a lot more.

And when the Internet doesn’t have the answer, there are always real books.

References

As I go around learning things, I try to collect useful resources on this page. After learning a subject area, there are always things you constantly need to refer back to, and these are good places to find such information when you need it.

Make Yourself A Bit Better Each Day

If you are not one of the naturally gifted at everything, there are ways of improving your skills at various basic cognition tasks, such as vocabulary, memory, problem solving, etc. Or perhaps you want to learn something a little more specific, like Python programming, but don’t have the time to take a class or devote yourself to a project. Try practising a little bit each day on the skills you wish to improve. My comments on the things I have tried are available here.