part in a two-part series on career-long learning as a data scientist. The first article covered why you should be a career-long learner and how to come up with topics to study.
In this article, I’ll discuss:
- Multiple strategies to avoid burnout
- The two learning strategies I use
- The (often overlooked) power of solitude
Let’s get into it!
Avoiding burnout
As a career-long learner, burnout is the ultimate enemy. You can only reap the benefits of years of study if you… well, study for years. Burn out puts that development in jeopardy.
This is a marathon, not a sprint. In this section, I’ll share things that I do to keep myself engaged and excited in my learning journey.
Create a fun and motivating incentive structure
When doing self-directed study, it is important to put together an incentive structure that works for you. Do some soul-searching and figure out an approach that is fun and motivating.
You’re reading my incentive structure! I like learning about/mastering topics and then writing articles to share what I learn. It is really fun to look at the reads my articles get and count the dollars they make. It’s not about the money — I don’t make much — but it is a fun game that motivates me to keep studying and writing.
If writing isn’t your thing, there are a lot of other things you could do. I’ve seen people make YouTube videos, post short comments on LinkedIn or buy themselves a fun reward when they hit a milestone.
No one can tell you what will work for you, you’ll have to figure that out on your own. But it is important that you find something that makes your studies fun and engaging. Otherwise, you will likely start feeling burn out.
Set up clear stopping points/check points
It is important to feel like you are progressing in your studying. You need to feel a sense of accomplishment. A good motivation structure will definitely help with this as discussed in the last section. You should also make sure you have good stopping points/check points. Endlessly studying a topic with no exit plan can lead to frustration and boredom.
Before you start a study topic, set up goals for what you want to learn. Once you’ve accomplished your initial goals, you can reassess if you want to continue deeper on that topic or move to something else. Being intentional will make you feel like you are in control. Having check points will make you feel like you are progressing.
Again, writing articles serves as check points for me. I write an article on a topic, once I’ve written it, I can decide if I want to write another article on the same topic, diving deeper, or move on. Writing gives me good stopping and check points that help me feel like I’m moving forward. Just like your incentive structure, you’ll have to find the approach that works best for you.
Lower the pressure — a little study is infinitely better than nothing
You are not in school anymore. No one is going to fail you! It is important that you turn down the pressure you put on yourself when studying. If you are doing something, you are doing better than most.
You might be busy for a period of time, and your studying may slow down. That is okay — I’m the father of a toddler; I studied a lot more before my child was born than I do now. And that is okay! I’m still studying and making progress.
You might take longer to master a topic than you expected. You might have to take a break from studying for health or personal reasons. All of these things are okay, as long as you are doing something when you can.
Lowering the pressures on your studies will help avoid feeling of stress and guilt. If you feel stressed out, you’ll avoid what is giving you stress. If you feel guilty, you’ll force yourself to study to avoid the guilt for a while, but eventually you will likely feel burned about and quit.
Giving yourself grace and lowering the pressure you put on yourself will pay big dividends by helping you avoid negative feelings with your studies.
You are going to forget things, come to terms with your mortality
Forgetting things that I learned is one of the biggest frustrations I face as I try to improve myself through continual study. I had to come to terms with my mortality and accept that I will forget some things. Accepting this has decreased my frustrations and disappointments in my studies, which has helped me avoid burn out.
For example, I wrote an article about the simplex method used in linear programming over a year ago. I could give an overview of the main ideas of the algorithm, but I honestly couldn’t walk you through the specifics right now. This frustrates me, but I have come to terms with the fact that I’m not going to retain an encyclopedic knowledge of all of the topics I study.
I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I won’t retain everything I learn — you probably should too. I’ve come up with a few thoughts that I review when I get frustrated:
- 100% efficiency (retaining everything I learn) was never the goal and isn’t possible
- I will remember a lot of things I study; I will always know more about a topic after studying it
- If I take good notes, I can remind myself of most of what I forget by reading explanations in my own words and manner of thinking — I’ll refresh on topics much faster because I studied them previously
If you’re bored, or hate it, move on
One of the best things about not being in school (other than the tuition as mentioned in part 1!) is that you don’t have to study anything specific. If you are studying a topic and you stop “feeling it” at some point, it is okay to just move onto something else. Don’t feel bad about it and don’t force yourself to “tough it out.” If you aren’t enjoying it, you are likely going to start burning out.
At one point, I was doing a deep dive into splines. I developed a good understanding of them, but I wanted to understand them to a level that I could write code to manually calculate them in Python. I spent hours trying to figure it out without success. I started getting frustrated and I wasn’t having fun. I decided to let it go and move onto something else.
I felt light, free and most importantly, ready to study something else after I decided to move on. Maybe I’ll come back to it one day, maybe I won’t. But not forcing myself to do something I didn’t enjoy helped me continue to enjoy studying.
The two learning strategies I use
When studying any topic, I use a mix of two primary learning strategies:
- High volume, low retention
- Low volume, high retention
High volume, low retention
In this approach, I quickly cover a lot of material. I prioritize coverage of material over retention. An example of this approach is listening to a podcast or audio books while cleaning the house or casually watching YouTube videos without pausing/taking notes.
I use generally use this approach in two situations:
- The topic is something I want exposure to, but not something I need to master. Topics where a high-level overview is sufficient. Examples of these topics for me are data engineering and software engineering. They somewhat apply to my job and broadly help me develop my skills, but the vast majority of the value to me can be provided by high-level overviews.
- When doing ‘discovery’ studying through my ‘discovery channels’ (see part 1 for my definition of discovery channels). This approach is great for getting quick exposure to a broad range of topics before narrowing in on topics to study in greater depth.
Low volume, high retention
Probably more than ninety percent of my study time is spent doing low volume, high retention learning. This approach is characterized by going through the material slowly and mastering the details. I usually reference multiple books, articles, videos and papers when I’m using this study strategy. I aim to get a deep understanding of the material.
The low volume, high retention technique is best when you’ve identified something that you want to know really well. A few examples of topics that fall into this category for me are most topics associated with predictive modeling, experimental design and optimization.
The importance of solitude and quiet to digest and internalize
When I started my career-long studying, I made the mistake of spending almost all of my study time consuming material; reading books and papers, watching lectures on YouTube, listening to podcasts, etc. It took some time for me to realize that my studying was missing a hugely important component — time away from the books in solitude to digest and internalize the material.
The goal of your studying should be to have a deep understanding of the material, not just to be able to regurgitate the information. The best way to do that is to close the books and think through what you’ve learned. When using solitude to deepen my understanding, I ask questions, challenge premises and extend the connections of what I’ve learned to other topics.
By combining ‘traditional’ studying with ‘solitude’, you get the best of both worlds. You leverage the huge amount of well-thought out, well-researched and well-organized body of information available to us in our era and you take the time to internalize it so the knowledge becomes yours.
For me, my ‘solitude’ time has two forms — long and short forms. For long forms, I intentionally put away the material and think it through. I often go on walks or pace a room back and forth (usually talking to myself like a crazy person). This gives me plenty of time to organize large amounts of information in my head. I have time and the focus to ask and try to answer deeper questions about the material.
My short form of solitude is often just taking a few minutes to stop my traditional studying and think about what I’m learning. Sometimes it can be as short a five-minute break from ingesting material. This is a powerful technique because it helps me ingest the things that I’ve just learned moments earlier. This helps me slow down and really understand what I’m learning, rather than rushing through the material.
Wrapping it up
Being a career-long learner, has been extremely rewarding and fulfilling for me. I’ve picked up a few tricks and learned a few things along the way that I’ve shared in this article series. I hope that what something that I’ve shared is helpful to you.
Link to part 1: link
