21 points by frabia 2 weeks ago | 17 comments
I currently try to read long-form content that requires deep focus in the morning before work (30-45 mins depending on my day). Then during the day I have some breaks and read newsletters and other posts. Videos and podcasts are difficult for me to consume, as they are often a bit too padded with small talk and non-essential conversational information, but I sometimes listen to them when I work out or while I cook. I recently started taking notes when I read, I would like to extend this system into rewriting my synthesis in Obsidian or Notion.
However, despite all, I feel my reading list keeps growing and I'm always catching up with what happens in our field, but as if I'm always a few steps behind. There are many more articles and books that would make me better as a professional, but I simply don't have time to go through them. (Not to mention other topics I'd like to learn aside from my work, or simply read for pleasure.)
So my question is: how do you keep up? How do you stay up-to-date in your own profession?
And I mean it both in terms of your approach/methodology (e.g. when do you read and what, how do you retain information, what aids to reading/bookmarking do you use) but also in terms of the mental aspect/wellbeing (how much is "good enough" for you? How do you keep yourself from being overwhelmed? Do you feel energized by reading?).
gerlv 2 weeks ago
2. Most of the sources you've mentioned are push-based - i.e. someone else is pushing this new info onto you (newsletters, youtube, podcasts, news). This increases FOMO. Instead, try to implement a pull-based approach and only seek and read info that is relevant to what you want to learn, read. It's a lot harder than it seems, but my guess it's harder due to default.
Last year, I re-tried[1] the experiment of not using the internet for entertainment for a few months, only for work and life admin. To catch up with news, I subscribed to a paper-based weekly newspaper. If there is something important in the world, you will find out about it, someone will tell you. But this will help a ton with anxiety and mental health.
The other thing I realised - when I listen to podcast and go into info overload, I get burned out a lot quicker. Listening to podcasts while working is the worst. I removed all podcast subscriptions and only started adding those that I want to listen + limit when I listen to these episodes.
viraptor 2 weeks ago
aprdm 2 weeks ago
raccoonhands 2 weeks ago
The only way I found out about a website I've come to use pretty much daily because it proved itself very useful to my job is though this method.