
Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once - mannimow
Hi NH.<p>A couple of years ago I realised I was a mediocre programmer. After 5 years of work experience with unfinished degree I knew only one language (php of all...) and some good practices on a surface level. I set that for change. For 2 years I studied in my spare time, learned a bit of Java, go, clojure, learned some fundamentals and good practices classics (gang of four, DRY) started reading blogs and following the industry.<p>Except, it&#x27;s too much. I realised I am into too many things. I know a bit of everything, but not too many things well. I want to study data science, maths, devops and find that my desire is driven by fear of becoming outdated and irrelevant. I would appreciate a piece of advise on managing the learning process, get the joy of tinkering back and conquering the anxiety of ever changing rules to the game. Thank you.
======
uniclaude
As some noted, the fact that you realized what drives your desire is very
impressive. It takes a certain skill to understand those things!

As someone who's been at it for years, I'll just give you one little piece of
advice. If you've already been through the fundamentals, you've done enough.
Now, instead of focusing on learning technology, focus on building things,
this is what real engineers do.

Let me explain. You'll probably get much better with at least one thing once
you ship a real project to the end, and this is where you'll get better.

One of the best programmers I've ever worked with was a PHP guy when I met
him, and he was good because he shipped efficient, tested, and working code
fast, all while being able to document and communicate about it with his team.
That's what being a programmer is. You won't become a good professional
programmer by chasing after hip technologies (even though learning different
paradigms always help), but by building things, and preferably with people,
because this is how things work in the real world.

As long as you stay with startups and technology companies, you'll see that
any CTO or lead dev worth his salt would rather hire a smart Perl programmer
with strong fundamentals who shipped things over someone (maybe smart too) who
knows a bit of JS, a bit of Java, and a bit of Haskell. This is, however,
_not_ true with a lot of non-tech companies, where keywords on resume, a
professional-looking attitude, and some good sales skills will usually get you
better positions.

It's never too late, don't fear irrelevance, build things, and have fun!

~~~
collyw
You don't get as many job offers by becoming an expert in one area though....

How many job offers do you see looking for a smart Perl programmer. How many
do you see listing 10+ technologies, plus experience in scrum? (Does doing a
stand up every day make you better at it? )

~~~
gscott
Those job postings are designed to weed out Americans and hire Indians. Real
postings are more reasonable.

~~~
lucasnemeth
That is a racist comment. You could had said "in the US they make those job
postings catered to a specific person that they want to hire as an H1B"
instead, but specifying that it is intented to weed out americans (specially
given the fact that no one said we where talking about the US market!!) and
hire specifically Indians (and not foreigners, or people in search of a visa)
is racist. It shows a specific prejudice against Indians and a belief that the
position they fill are less legitimate than the ones an American fills.

~~~
to3m
Other options can be:

\- HR requirement that all positions be advertised externally, even when there
is an internal candidate who is suitable and people are happy with (similar
rationale for the H1B policy but at a smaller scale and less likely to
engender foamy-mouthed rantings)

\- hiring company is actually an agency who is fishing for CVs

------
endymi0n
For me, the major insight was to realize that the best of the best are
struggling just as much as myself. I often come back to this diagram for
relief, and it's true.

[http://www.invokemedia.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/06/venndi...](http://www.invokemedia.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/06/venndiagram.png)

It's really all about focus. Learn one thing at once. Rinse and repeat, and
come back to the topic later for more insight.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_approach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_approach)

Don't be afraid to say "I don't get that (yet)." \- for me it's a sign of
quality in an engineer, if he realizes he doesn't grasp a concept yet.

All others are struggling too, even the best:

[http://fourhourworkweek.com/2013/11/03/productivity-
hacks/](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2013/11/03/productivity-hacks/)

In the end, if you're not embarrased about the code you wrote half a year ago,
it's a sign you're not progressing.

~~~
maze-le
> In the end, if you're not embarrased about the code you wrote half a year
> ago, it's a sign you're not progressing.

Interesting opinion. I have that experience often enough when I look at rusty
old code of mine. But I always was under the impression, that this is
something of a problem, not a good sign...

~~~
franciscop
Definitely a good sign. It even extends to other areas besides programming; as
a non-native English speaker, at some point I was happy that I didn't really
need to use the dictionary anymore. Then I realized that it actually meant
that I wasn't pushing my boundaries enough and I started picking up more
difficult books and learning Japanese (:

------
danieldk
I think you have found two problems that many people will bump into: (1) there
are two many subfields to keep track of everything; (2) in any particular
subfield there are people who seem to be infinitely much better than you are
:).

Both are true: there are simply too many subfields if you want to excel in all
of them, for any particular subfield there are people who are much better than
you are, because most of them have invested a lot of time to become an expert.

My first advise would be to get the basics right: many commonly-used
algorithms and data structures haven't changed the last 20-50 years. If you
know then inside-out, you know what to pick to solve a problem. Get a good
book on Algorithms & Data Structures or follow a course or two.

My second advise would be to pick the area that interests you the most. Read
the foundational books, follow the leaders in the field, and do projects (they
are good practice and help you to build a portfolio). Put a strong filter on
the stuff that irrelevant to your chosen area (only read the most interesting
bits). You will find that you quickly change from novice to expert in your
area.

When it comes to programming languages: it's fun and useful to know some
languages. But in the end what you ship is more important. So, just pick a
language that feels natural for solving the problem and don't get too
distracted by armchair PL philosophers ;).

~~~
gonzo41
Its important to remember that the internet amplifies experts, they get a big
stage. What you see in tech are lots of very smart people in a very tight bell
curve. Very smart compared to the general population. But in comparison to
each other there is difference, but not as much as you think. Its easy to say
don't worry about it. So i will add. Remember, even the experts only have time
for at best 1 job at a time. They have lives to live too, make sure you live
yours.

------
panjaro
I feel good when I see posts like this. I have suffered and in past month have
gone from an employee of very good company to broke unemployed. I am typically
starting from scratch.

Reason: I thought I wasn't a good developer. More I read HN, articles,
stories, more I got anxious and left my job to pursue research degree. I
figured out I lacked mathematical abilities to do research in the field I
wanted to. I became depressed and I felt regret all the time.

After 7 months, I realized I was chasing the horizon. I have realized it's not
the new things you learn or the awesome technologies you learn that matters.
Things that matter are: Being good at what you do, whatever it be...some
people spent life juggling balls. They aren't genius in maths, science etc.
but they are awesome at what they do. It makes you feel wow !

Second, it's about being happy. If you are writing this post in HN then you
belong to very privileged class of people in the world. Be thankful for what
you have. Love your family, friends. That is what matters. It doesn't matter
what technologies you learn when you turn 60-65. All that matters is the happy
moments you have shared with your loved ones.

Third. Don't take what's written by founders or geniuses seriously. Read,
acknowledge and move on. If you question yourself over what others are doing
and learning, you will be in mental hospital soon. So take things easy.

Last month I took a job in a company. Technology wise it's crap. No process.
But everything works there. People get things done. We laugh, chat and go home
early. I go to gym after work and sleep well after I come back. I enjoy time
with my wife on weekend and thank god for this life.

It doesn't mean I'm doing nothing. I have compiled a list of books I want to
study. I have read 2 chapters and I started a small project for fun. These are
the only two things I'll work on..but no rush....slowly. After all they are
last things I have to worry about in my life. First things first - Enjoy life
and be happy.

Lastly, watch this -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCvAl2Vr7as](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCvAl2Vr7as)

and See how happy and cheerful she is. She isn't scientist or math genius or a
great programmer but she is awesome at what she does. Note her answers to
questions.

~~~
mbrundle
This post sums me up too - trained in a very mathematical field, but without a
maths background - walked away from it all for a year to rethink things and
spend time with my kids - spent ages trying to learn new tech and boost my
skills - just got a job again, doing pretty much what I was doing before. And
in a month, I've learnt more through my project work as collaborations with
team members than I did when I was self-learning during my year off.

Now I'm combining the two - learning some new stuff during my commute, putting
it into practice at work - and at the same time, making sure that my evenings
and weekends are free to spend with my family. Right now I couldn't be happier
- I feel that I'm finally beginning to develop as a software engineer, but I
can maintain a nice work-life balance too.

Totally second the other posts here - learning is good but you really need to
be working on building something, because that allows you to really
consolidate when you've learnt. It's when you spot the perfect application for
some theory you learnt in your project work, and you can execute that
application, that you really start getting somewhere. IMHO. :)

------
mikekchar
You make 2 interesting statements:

\- I realised I was a mediocre programmer

\- ... (I) find that my desire is driven by fear ...

The first is a good feeling :-) Too many programmers don't have this
realisation. Embrace it!

The second is something that worries me slightly. All of the programmers that
I know who are driven by fear let it chase them into failure. Getting the "joy
of tinkering back" is what you need. Forget the "ever changing rules". Chase
what you love and forget about the rest.

Now for some specific advice. You are at a level now where you need to
integrate your knowledge, not learn bits and pieces. Stop everything else you
are doing and start a major project that will occupy your time for the next
year or so. It doesn't matter what it is, only that it is something you love.
This will help you more than anything else.

~~~
amelius
> Getting the "joy of tinkering back" is what you need.

That would be pretty hard if you'd be working on a 20+ year old legacy system
written in COBOL.

~~~
mseebach
First - why not? Apply fantasy.

Second, that doesn't subtract from the advice being correct. Sometimes the
thing you need to do is just "pretty hard". Or, put reversely, if you never do
things just because they are hard, don't be surprised when you end up in a
boring and uninspiring place.

------
prostoalex
Focus on one. Finish it. It will feel like an accomplishment. Genuine interest
in things is certainly better than lack of it, but ability to say "no" to an
interesting thing is a skill that needs learning on its own.

Also, this [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2015/06/19/why-
successful...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2015/06/19/why-successful-
people-focus-on-the-bottom-end-of-the-funnel/)

~~~
deckiedan
Yes. Do one project completely to a state where you feel proud of it, and like
you've mastered what you can in that realm.

Write a production-ready library in a language you are interested in, complete
with unit tests, follow best practices, write a set of good documentation,
etc. for it. Put it on github, in the language's package management system,
and see what happens.

Finishing stuff does really feel good.

~~~
VaidasC
I would like to put forward another perspective.

I notice that in software industry there is common recommendation of doing
some project (or just hack something) to to learn or get better at something.
This advice I think is solid and is generally good for many people.

However, I feel that it is not valid or valid only in very limited way to some
people. This all depends on character types I guess. E. g. myself, if I ever
tried following it I would not get anywhere, because projects for the sake of
projects is something my mind has big problems with. It's simply not in my
nature. I would argue that regarding this point I am part of silent minority
in IT industry since I noticed quite a few developers who are similar in this
regard.

So what is alternative if projects/portfolio/... might not be a thing for you.
What works for me:

1\. Concentrate on Theory. This addresses few things: I must understand theory
to not get frustrated, I m more interested in theory than practice in general,
Often theory is just enough and mind will just find solution when you need.

A. Concentrate more on studying theory.

B. Use micro-projects just for testing and understanding concepts, not
something useful by itself.

C. Study "best practices". To compensate for project problem.

2\. Look for a way to have goals (projects) forced on you. Addresses few
things: it frees your mind from over-thinking (e.g. "whats the big purpose of
this?"), it must be done - you cannot just quit when lose interest/reason-to-
continue.

A. Hobby. Join online courses with assignments, university (if it allows).

B. Job. Try to look for positions with more "projects".

------
eru
> I want to study data science, maths, devops and find that my desire is
> driven by fear of becoming outdated and irrelevant. [..] and conquering the
> anxiety of ever changing rules to the game.

If that is your genuine concern, I'd suggest focussing on timeless topics. Two
easy rule of thumbs: (1) if it's been around for a while and still relevant,
it's probably going to stay that way (eg compilers/parsers, operating
systems). (2) if it's hard and math-y, it has a good chance at staying power,
even if new.

In any case, do what adyus said: pick one thing, and ship, ship, ship.

Some inspirational reading: Peter Norvig's "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten
Years" ([http://norvig.com/21-days.html](http://norvig.com/21-days.html)),
Richard Hamming's "You and Your Research"
([https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)).
Or if you are of a more entrepreneurial bend, P.T. Barnum's "The Art of Money
Getting"
([https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8581/8581-h/8581-h.htm](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8581/8581-h/8581-h.htm))

Happy to talk in private. My email is in my profile.

(Some snark thrown in for free: forget about OOP design patterns.)

~~~
MarcusP
Could you elaborate on your snark? Do you think OOP design patterns become
outdated quickly? Do you think it's a waste of time for a programmer to study
them?

~~~
mdup
In my case it came in two steps:

1\. Learn GoF design patterns. Be amazed by the cleverness.

2\. While learning others languages, discover that other approaches remove the
need for GoF design patterns at all.

Example: Visitor isn't needed in a language with double dispatch (like Lisp).
Chain-of-Responsibility is just foldl. Factory for dependency injection is
just a closure or a partial function. And so on.

~~~
eru
Yes, that's what I was playing at. Other languages have things similar to
design patterns, too.

If you are in luck, a language gives you first class support for abstracting
new patterns. (Eg in assembly a procedure is just a pattern and convention,
most modern languages help you by providing procedures. Same languages are
very good at being extended. Lisp is a good example, and so is Haskell. Even
Python is great in that respect compared to, say, Pascal.)

I am still trying to figure out what dependency injection really is. It's
seems like only the Java guys have a need for it, but they rave about it.

~~~
devdas
If you have a function which invokes a different object (or more commonly, a
different network service), you pass that as a parameter instead of making a
call inside the function.

foo() { service = someRemoteService(authn, authz);
[http://lookingglass.internal.adm.bol.com/?page=TAM+Middlewar...](http://lookingglass.internal.adm.bol.com/?page=TAM+Middleware+PRO+Nonworkhours&showclock=1&showsoft=1&showacks=1&showzzz=1&showmute=1&showmenu=0)
}

is replaced by

foo(service) { do_something_with_service(service) }

It makes replacing service with fake_service_object easier, thus simplifying
the test process.

Common use case: If your service was a remote database, you can replace the
database handle with a mock object which pretends to be a DB but is actually a
simple object returning hardcoded values.

------
garrettheaver
Whatever you're not enjoying, stop. Whatever you are enjoying, keep. A career
is too long to be carrying the things which turn it from being "a hobby" into
a "real job"™.

I've often found that if I tried to do something because I thought it would be
good for my long term career prospects I just wasn't that motivated. However I
often found myself circling back to the same technology or topic at a later
date out of pure interest and was highly motivated then. Attitude toward what
you're working on and your reason for doing it is almost everything.

Sounds like you're maybe feeling a little burnt out if I'm honest. It happens
to all of us. Whenever it happens to me I either increase the frequency of my
other hobbies I enjoy (water sports) or if its a particularly bad spell, try
looking into some completely unrelated area of inquiry (for me that can be
space, cartography, travel, electronics, brewing beer, etc - even learning a
musical instrument). I find that it not only stimulates my mind again but
ultimately I start to make new connections about how my existing software
skills can be applied to this new area of interest. New project ideas start to
flow... and off we go again.

~~~
vincston
I'd love to have concrete and applicable hobby, but that isnt the case. Some
people (like me) still have no clear thing in mind. Take me for example.

I'm still a student, studying computerscience and I'm almost finished. The
problem is, my fun in computerscience is simply limited, sometimes it really
makes a lot of fun. Sometimes it doesnt (Majority, since I am really
unmotivated). Now. The problem is, I don't have anything I'd consider to do
for the rest of my life. Was totally clueless after graduating from school and
I'm still unsure. This just doesnt sound like a good future, but I really cant
figure.

For now I'll just graduate from university. Any Advice?

~~~
garrettheaver
You'll only find out what you enjoy doing by trying it. That means just giving
everything a go at least once rather than trying to imagine what you will or
won't like. In my teens and early twenties I hated the thought of water
sports. "Cold water and exercise? Are you mad?" It took until my late twenties
to properly try these things and I fell in love with them.

Getting passionate about something is weird. You can't make yourself do it.
You can only discover it. The only way to discover something is to get off the
sofa and go looking for it.

 _Edit_ : and for what it's worth, I found "computer science" as taught at
university the most boring subject known to man-kind. For a lot of university
courses, it's the antithesis of "hacking". I love making things and software
presents us all with a creative canvas where the only really hard limits are
our imaginations and in some cases, access to raw data. I dropped out of
university after 2 years yet here I am nearly 12 years later at the peak of my
game thus far and I enjoy the fact I still have a lot to learn and the field
still has seemingly endless challenges to tackle.

------
nchelluri
I have been programming for over 20 years and have very similar thoughts all
the time :)

My eyes are bigger than my stomach. I believe that these days it's probably
impossible for anyone to really understand everything.

Personally, I think PHP is a fine language when coded well (most of my PHP
looks like my Java, though I haven't coded much PHP since just before the
introduction of lambdas). I feel like it undeservedly gets a bad rap, perhaps
because it's so easy to write horrible code in it. But that is just evidence
of its complete accessibility in my books. I think that some of the coworkers
I had at my PHP jobs would agree that it is an adequate tool for the job of
web development (some people even use it for other purposes, but that's not my
style).

I wish I could give you some solid advice, but I don't feel qualified to do
so. I will say, however, my favorite experiences in programming have always
been upon completion of a project -- seeing it go live, get real users, and
actually work, from start to finish. Most of those times have been in my
professional career where I was paid to complete something and had a hard
deadline (that has nearly always slipped), but a few have been school
assignments and personal or open-source projects that have 0 or nearly 0
users. Sometimes solving a problem or scratching an itch is just the thing I
need.

Also, in nearly every case where I've shipped production code, I look back on
it fondly some years later (especially if it is still running and getting
used) and think, "damn, I must have done an incredible job. I got everything
just right." But on the rare occasions where I get to look back at the source
code, it's always got plenty of TODOs lying around, and things I wanted to
fix, stuff I would do if I had a bit more time but just never got to, etc.
It's never perfect... but sometimes it still works. Memory is a funny thing.

Finally, someone linked this on a vaguely similar thread recently:
[https://www.physics.ohio-
state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html](https://www.physics.ohio-
state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html) \- I thought it was great.

Here's that thread, BTW, which you may also enjoy:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9796203](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9796203)
\-- some really quality responses on there, IMO.

~~~
kirang1989
> Finally, someone linked this on a vaguely similar thread recently:
> [https://www.physics.ohio-
> state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html](https://www.physics.ohio-
> state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html) \- I thought it was great.

Feynman is a lovely example to follow for anyone wanting to become an
engineer. The book is one of my all-time favorites.

------
swsieber
Instead of picking technologies, pick a project. Let your development be
project driven. When I needed to inject javascript to scrape a complex static
page and change it into an angular app, all of a sudden I learned less and
gulp because I had heard about them and they helped for that goal. Choosing a
project will let you learn while focusing on one thing, although potentially
learning a lot of things.

An airplane pilot once told me that when young airplane pilots experience
turbulence, their reaction is to speed up to get through it faster. That makes
the turbulence worse. An experienced pilot will slow down because it reduces
turbulence and makes the trip enjoyable again.

Edited for clarity.

~~~
ak39
I loved your airplane pilot analogy. The Turbulence Paradox: act not to remove
the turbulence, instead slow down to make the flight more enjoyable once again
_through_ the turbulence.

Zen for the 21st century.

------
ibash
Congratulations, it sounds like you made measurable progress toward your goal.
I think the best you can do is embrace the fact that:

1\. It's always changing

2\. Feel confident in that something that you learn will become relevant again

3\. You can't know everything

In addition, find a team that will help you learn and practice everything you
are interested in. Look for a company/team where individual engineers have to
wear many hats.

------
hv23
Apart from the desire to learn those skills that you state is driven by fear,
with a bit of introspection can you cut through that and articulate your
_actual_ core desires? i.e. when you're able to quiet that nagging voice, what
topics/subjects/work bring you true joy/pleasure? Put differently — if you had
infinite money what would you want to spend your time working on?

~~~
mordrax
I asked myself that question 2 years ago and there were alot of occasions
where I picked up a project but then would lose interest a few months into it
when the going got hard.

I think this is a good question that everyone at some stage of their life will
need to ask to grow beyond what society and peers demands of you, but don't
make this out to be the silver bullet like I did because I'm still on that
path and I have no idea if I'm getting any closer to an answer... damn! hehe

------
elorant
First of all there are not good and bad languages, there are programmers who
know a platform well and others who don’t. So as a first piece of advice I’d
say choose a language, any language, and stick with it. Sure, sexy things are
published all the time but you don’t need to know a dozen frameworks to get
your job done.

Your fear of becoming outdated is well founded. We’ll all become outdated.
That’s why every five years or so we learn a new language. That’s the fate of
the IT industry, things change and sometimes they change too fast. We learn to
adapt. But once you learn a language pretty well you’ll realize that there are
commonalities between them all. Learning a new one is a matter of weeks. So
stop worrying too much.

My last advice would be to choose a project and focus on it for the next two
to three months. Stop reading and start implementing. That’s probably the
hardest part. But it will help you get in grips with the language of your
choice and feel more comfortable and self-confident. And it will also help you
realize the path you wish to follow.

~~~
eru
Nah, if you don't want to change, you don't have to. Just pick the right
tools.

If you don't mind selling your soul, COBOL programmers get paid more and more
because supply is dwindling. And I bet you dollars to donuts that COBOL will
be around for longer than anyone's career.

If you care about your sole, it's a bit harder, but C will probably be around,
too.

Some languages are worse than others. PHP is definitely in the worse camp.

Fully agree with the last paragraph.

------
nanuclickity
Hi. You're awesome! :) I started up the same way.

In my 2nd year, I was selling website templates and earning good money. It
required little knowledge of html, css, and js. It was good. But soon
saturated my hunger. I read up on solving problems, from a development
perspective. It's a lazy man's job but a brainstorming one.

Solving problems gave me direction. I proceeded to learn different languages
for different tasks that were required. I read about implementing backend in
django, ruby on rails, node.js and php.

In late 2nd year, I decided to work in a team, and solve problems as a team. I
took the job on CTO, for various startups in college. Each startup would
present a different problem.

Instead of learning it all. My direction became problem centric. Sure, most of
my startups failed, I was working with resourceless people in college. And had
to always be the one to start everything from ground-up.

Investing my time in too many startups, too many problems, too many languages
... hung me up on my degree. :P

Sure, you'll meet people who have a mindset that they'll get you to make the
product and then ditch you. But I never cared about it. :P Don't feel bad.The
world will always be like that. I got what i signed up for. :)

I am now a full stack developer by choice, I design my products, create apps
and I have functional knowledge of most of the awesome frameworks. My journey
made me work with deployment, asset management, managing servers, deploying
hybrid apps, scrape data, building performant and consistent api’s.

It was a hard time. I will get my degree this autumn. Look at the bright side.

People always get happy when you can turn their idea into product in <15 days.
:) Just solve problems… and you’ll emerge as a magician. :D All the best !

------
igammarays
Buy the American self-help classic, How To Stop Worrying and Start Living by
Dale Carnegie, and read a small portion daily regularly before bed. Seriously,
that book changed my life, career and studies. Brought a new level of focus
and mastery into all my works.

------
yitchelle
I am in a similar boat, that is after being at least 20 years of practicing
software engineering. I work in deep embedded, so my language is either C or
assembly. Over the years, I have touched on Perl, Java, python, php, various
shell scripts, and many others. Also exposed to various technologies and
industry as well.

The question that I keep coming back to is whether I am doing the things that
I find interesting and engaging. The answer is an absolute YES. However, if I
need to do something else where I would need to learn some other language, or
technology, so be it. It is all part of the process.

My advice is to slow down, and focus on your interest and passion.

------
polskibus
You sir are a generalist at heart not a specialist. Embrace it and make it
your strength! Of course, some focus training is good, learn to fight
distraction, but also realize that your brain craves that extra breadth.

------
adyus
I'd suggest focusing on getting something to work, regardless of what you
write it in. Then, if time allows and if it gets traction, refactor it.

But the main focus should be to get _something_ working.

------
kluck
I am as well guilty of starting many side projects and working on them in
parallel (about 20 currently). I tried various approaches of "managing myself"
in order to get some progress on all of them. I tried to limit the number of
projects drastically and also to a single one. That did not really work,
because my heart was always drawn to these other projects that I had
discarded. So currently I have these 20 projects and try to keep track of all
of them. I choose one from day to day and try to work on it. And so far this
approach works quite well.

I think it boils down to weither you keep track of all your projects (what's
to be done next), that you do not try to plan ahead too much and that you do
not plan too many tasks for a single day. If you stick to these guidelines
there is a high probability that you get a good experience ("did that,
finished that") every now and then which keeps you going.

------
joeyspn
> I am busy with too many things at once

Same for some of us. In my case, I'm busy building too many side-projects, and
I do it just for the sake of learning new stuff, I have a lot of fun and it
works!

With 5 years you're just starting. You need to pick an idea related with 3 or
4 fields you want to learn (Data Science, DevOps, etc) and _build it_. For
example: An app that analyses tweets from a twitter stream in real-time and
applies predictive analysis for certain (or funny) topics. You can use docker
containers and setup a CI server yourself.

It must be an idea _that excites you_. Build it from a paper sketch, to a MVC
app, to CI server. You'll learn along the way, bit by bit, don't rush
things...

This is very effective for learning, and there's also something special seeing
your small (or big) ideas come to life. You'll get an enormous satisfaction...

------
voiceclonr
I think it might help if you start looking at different technologies and
languages as tools to get done. And those are guaranteed to keep changing. So
you start focusing on doing or building something with those tools. This way
you won't be overwhelmed by too many things floating around and try to get
something meaningful out of whatever you are learning. It is really difficult
to be an expert in many things at one time and very few succeed in it - but it
is possible to be moderately successful in learning those and put them to use
(and unless you use those, reading blogs/books etc won't be long standing IMO
and you will keep questioning yourself if you have really learnt it or not).

------
stanmancan
I think something we all need to remember is that there will always be
something new for us learn, but you don't have to learn it. I started
programming in PHP about 10 years ago. At the time, people told me not to
waste my time, it's a junk language that will good the wayside. Today? Still
writing PHP, and getting paid alright to do so. I follow the industry and
trends and I look into the latest and greatest and I'm aware of what's going
on but I rarely spend any time learning it. As long as I know the pros and
cons of X and what I would use it for I'm content.

TLDR: Don't worry or feel the need to know everything. Pick what you love and
enjoy working in and focus on that.

------
eljimmy
I am the exact same way. I find it difficult to want to specialize in a
certain area. I always want to learn everything. Xyz company is using Go? I
should learn Go. Abc company is using RoR? I should learn RoR. It can be a bit
of a perpetual drive which may at times be mentally exhausting but I think
it's good to have that and to not be complacent.

I find it overwhelming at times. But I think uniclaude said it best, you just
need to jump into it and make something, build something and don't be afraid
to write shit code. Afterwards you can step back and have a look at what new
knowledge you've just acquired and begin to fine-tune any rough edges if it
still interests you.

------
Jem
Do you want to learn all of those because you have a genuine interest in doing
so, or do you want to learn all of those things because you feel you "should"?

I browse HN and read comments and articles I do not even begin to understand,
and it's hard not to feel rapidly inferior. But you don't have to be a genius
to make a difference, and you don't have to be a genius to be happy.

I make my living off the back of PHP. Sure it's got a bad rep, but it's hard
to knock something that keeps a roof over my kid's heads and their bellies
full.

If you want to learn because of genuine interest - do one thing at a time. Let
your curiosity guide you. And good luck!

------
thomasrossi
When you don't know yourself even a victory has a defeat inside. Among all
that you said: math and data science are very nice skills to have. A theorem
is not a matter of fashion it is true (under his hypothesis) it will always
work for you.

I am extra full of things running in parallel so no good teacher here! But I
can share my experience: what made me step up from random to mediocre
programmer were the test classes, because finally stuff was making sense: the
test class is the theorem, my code is the demonstration, I could work with
that. You have to find your ways to make cool things work efficiently and
reliably.

------
NicoJuicy
Good programmers think they are mediocre, bad programmers think they rule.

Watch ancient code of you in PHP and after all you learned, read it again. Was
it really that bad code? I always thought the same like you did, but when i
read old code... I sometimes think it's beautifull ( can't explain it
otherwhise)

Learning other programming languages helps you understand architecture and
programming concepts, that you can probably implement in your "old"
programming language. Not learning them, doesn't mean you're a bad programmer,
perhaps just a lazy one :P

------
Tharkun
I recommend you read The Passionate Programmer. It is full of good career
advice. And if it won't tell you _what_ to focus on, it'll help you find out
what you _want_ to focus on.

------
readme
I don't actually think there is anything wrong with being a generalist. If
you're starting your own company or you're going to be the CTO or first
technical hire of a startup, general knowledge is the best kind.

You can always find specialists later. If you know a bit of everything, you
can set up your solution by yourself. Maybe it won't be perfect. Maybe it will
have to call someone's API that's too expensive, but later your specialist
will rewrite that code, for example.

------
kenny-log_ins
Hi mannimow,

I experience the same anxiety - I have a divergent way of thinking about
things and tend to get interested in lots of different things at once rather
than one thing in depth. Sometimes its good - I can think of different
approaches to problems, for example. It seems like it makes it difficult to
learn new skills to the point where they would be useful/worth anything to
prospective employers, however.

My current strategy to address this is pretty simple: choose one thing at a
time. To echo uniclaude's comment as well, it helps to build things - don't
read about 10 different ways to do linear regression, choose one and try to
make it work. I would also add that its fun to work with other people, and it
can help you stay focussed. Obviously there are a million ways to contact
people who you can work with on the internet, but I have been using meetup.com
to find groups of people who share my interests. going to hacks, workshops,
presentations and even having general discussions with people around one topic
can make the learning process more engaging and you get the added benefit of
being able to draw on other people's expertise and experience.

good luck!

------
raldu
Before anything, know that it is actually the _people_ that matters in the end
of the day, not "topics". You are creating with people for people, it is
people that'll give you the "push" you needed, people who give feedback,
people who love you and your work, people who challenge you, etc... Love
people and learn from them.

As to skills, and topics and work, just _focus_ on doing things that you love
and _repeat_. Because you will end up doing them anyway. The rest will follow.

I think the desire to learn many things at once is something most of us would
share. But be careful that it might also sprout from a fear of somehow
"missing the game". Trust that you are not "missing out" anything. Don't buy
too much into competition (which is again actually something about people).
You may try just getting an overall idea of the things you are curious about,
but still stick doing what you _love_. Because if a topic is important enough,
it will show up again anyway, which is when you will know for sure that "it's
the _actual_ time" to learn that topic in depth.

Love people, love work.

------
ransom1538
Studying a language is probably the worst way to learn it.

Languages are so simple to pick up these days: stackoverflow, teamtreehouse,
git, etc. Latch onto a fun project with a fun mission, learn languages on the
fly, and finish it. In a book, you wont learn how to debug that broken ruby
gem. This will guide you in the right direction as well, it will force you to
pickup pragmatic practices. [As opposed to sitting in the break room debating
abstract factory patterns vs factory pattens]. After 13 years of coding, I
just code on projects I enjoy now. I have to learn Go? Meh. Whatever. As a
side note on php (my true love), I encourage the hate - it helps my pay.

Java? Not until it gets the basic web functions,
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/832620/stripping-html-
tag...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/832620/stripping-html-tags-in-java)

------
robogimp
Buddy I hear you, we are all on very similar paths. Try to enjoy the journey
because the journey is all there is.

------
snarfy
> my desire is driven by fear of becoming outdated and irrelevant.

This needs to change. What's helped me a lot in recent years is to focus on
finishing projects. I don't even care what the project is as long as I finish
it before starting a new one. That is my desire now.

------
TheM00se
I feel that Im in a similar boat, the advice in this thread has been helpful
to me. What Im starting to realize is that its better to focus on a particular
field, such as mathematical analysis, or network security. This way you have a
skill in a particular field.

------
xiaoma
The single best advice I've seen was from Marc-André Cournoyer:
[https://youtu.be/ijZ-n5THbEM?t=10m19s](https://youtu.be/ijZ-n5THbEM?t=10m19s)

tldr; Instead of pure "learning-driven" activities, tackle side projects.
You'll cover a smaller problem space but learn it much better and have
something to show at the end. Copy something that already exists, build it
from scratch with few to no dependencies, possibly make it better in one
single dimension.

Actual examples Marc built that changed his career: Mongrel clone in under 500
lines of code Ant clone in under 400 lines of code

------
istvan__
I think it is important to balance between how much new things you are
learning and how much you are using previously learned things. The challenge
is to squeeze in the most potentially useful new things to the limited set
that you are going to learn. For example: is GO or Rust going to be the
language that I can use in my projects at work in the future? Should I learn
Clojure or Scala? Should I learn machine learning or statistics? etc.

I balance these based on the things I would like to do in the future. I become
and learn what I would like be and try to find a job where I can use those new
skills.

------
mannimow
Some really good advice here, thanks guys.

------
a3n
Work on something hard, or significant, or meaningful, or some other antonym
to trivial. Most importantly, do it with a group of people you can learn from,
and that can learn from you.

------
cobweb
I feel the same after doing web programming for over a decade. I started out
doing database stuff and actually with hindsight I think I could have quite
happily narrowed my focus towards being a db specialist, and avoided that
feeling of treading water. People say it's great to be an all rounder but it's
only when you are focused you excel at one thing. After grappling with an ad-
hoc task, I master it after a day, only to forget it by the next time I need
to use it.

------
lugus35
The technologies are not your resume. Your achievements are.

------
omginternets
You're not alone. I suspect we're roughly the same age, and I go through that
same anxiety on a daily basis.

We'll figure it out, like our fathers before us.

------
coolvision
Build something tangible in each of the areas you are interested in, and then
focus on the thing that was most exciting.

Btw, the problem you outlined makes a very good answer to the question that is
often asked in interviews -- "what's your greatest weakness". Not having deep
expertise in anything is not so good, it's a weakness indeed. But excitement
about many things and broad experience make up for it.

------
sp4rki
I'm gonna regurgitate what everyone is saying. Stop learning "because
learning" and start learning to complete a project/challenge. It's like
fighting, playing a sport, or writing poetry... It doesn't matter how much you
study the topic, you will only get better if you apply your knowledge to some
goal.

------
chrixian
Christ, I could have wrote this verbatim describing myself... I look forward
to reading the advice people give.

------
pknerd
I can relate myself here. Many people who are suggesting to focus on on
technology seems difficult now. If you are a web developer you need to know
many things. Apart from main programming language you should know about Redis
or other Q system, Build systems and many other things.

------
yanonymator
Grab a camel and court perl. You'll find no greater joy or beauty. Perl also
runs everywhere, on everything, so you're safe to practice monogamy.

Be minimist. Everyone is the same as you - swamped. Build to simplify and
remove, and you will succeed.

------
dylanjermiah
A relevant quote: If you try to do everything you end up doing nothing.

------
franciscop
Too busy to realize the first line is misspelled? (HN instead of NH) :P

~~~
aps-sids
"Instrad" instead of "Instead" :P

~~~
franciscop
thanks! fixed (;

------
Jugurtha
I can relate, except that I still stuck.

1 - What has helped me is to categorize my insterests. Sure, they're connected
in my brain and it's not like x is disconnected with y, we can always find a
connection.. but I needed to separate them into categories to be able to
manage them more easily because I don't need to tell you the state of the
brain if you dump all of them in the one and only category most of us have
which is labelled "Interesting" since we find every darn thing interesting.

Here's what I did:

I separated things into "Pillars". The way I think about them are Ministeries
(I needed a really bureaucratic rigid structure to balance out the clustermess
the brain is): Engineering, Business, Lifestyle, and Self Improvement.

Doing this alone has allowed to be conscious that I'm neglecting this category
or that one, because now they have a name and I can measure stuff. Before,
everything was just "Interesting" and it's not really easy to track down since
they all blended together in a homogenous whole. It's like being in a bath and
you're not really aware of _when_ the water became cold. Tagging avoids that
problem.

Compute how many hours you can dedicate for the whole stuff per _week_. There
was a time I studied for 16 hours a day but it's not really the best course.
It depends on your situation (work, etc). Most people say they don't have time
but they _really_ have a _lot_ of time. A lot would spend hours on Facebook,
then hours watching TV, and then complain and describe themselves as if
they're not the "sitting facing a computer person". Most are on a 5 hours
minimum wasted per day diet.

Each of those "Ministeries" gets a chunk of that time as a _weekly_ budget.
And this budget gets divided between the "Departments" making up that
Ministery (say Engineering has Control Theory, Programming, Signal Processing,
etc. Each one gets its weekly ration)

So imagine 40 hour per week for the whole 4 Ministeries. Say Engineering gets
20. From those 20, Control gets 5 hours per week, etc..

Thinking in _weeks_ was important because there's only so much stuff you can
fit in a day, and if you think in days, you wouldn't be able to see the whole
picture, which is: Making sure you touch each of your areas of interests on a
regular basis.

I'm sure you spent so much time on something really interesting, only to find
that you completely forgot another thing that's really interesting on which
you've spent a tremendous amount of time and of which you now recall nothing.
Right? Sounds familiar? The feeling of the wasted time and still barely
remembering a thing can make you punch walls.

So, instead of doing the same stuff for whole weeks or months.. You do many
things that you visit several times a week. This sort of refreshes your cache
with a high enough rate that you don't neglect a topic, but low enough for
other things to be touched, too. In other words, you don't touch TOPIC 1
_every single day_ , but even if you touch it every other day, the switching
is fast enough you have the impression you're doing it every day.

This doesn't work if you have very few areas of interest, but works wonders if
you have many. This is also why a week goes by "really fast", and why some
people feel it's long (because they're not doing much. Some people actually do
get bored).

Finally, limit things.

Not the amount of things you're interested in (although that helps.. But limit
resources. I was interested in Python and was wondering which book was good,
and where to start.. 4 years would pass. If I had read 10 pages per day of
_any_ book _while_ I was trying to decide, I would've been much better at it
right now.

This is where you have to be narrow-minded.. Want to learn Calculus? That one
is tricky since most books suck and aren't my style, but pick one book and go
through it. Even at 10 pages a day, 3650 pages per year. That's 6 books in a
year on Calculus.. I'd bet _anything_ that you'd be at the very least better
than if you were still _deciding_ which one to read.

Hope this helps (I struggled a lot and still have to pay attention to that).

~~~
d-equivalence
Doing ten pages of mathematics a day is not realistic. Unless you already have
been doing mathematics for years and are still relatively young.

How about a paragraph per day ?

~~~
eru
Depends on how dense your source material is.

No matter your level of sophistication, if you are making it through ten pages
a day, you should probably switch to harder material.

The specific number doesn't matter too much, though.

If you get through one page of dense math an hour, you are doing well.

~~~
Jugurtha
I agree, with a caveat (see my answer to d-equivalence): In Undergraduate
level for example, I think it would be useless to look for harder material for
no other reason than the very fact it is hard. The person still has to learn
the basics and that's the most important thing. Challenges are yet to come.

 _But_ , I agree that the material can be _boring_ and too basic. This is why
I have always preferred Soviet books (they get directly to the point and don't
address stuff you _should know_ ) vs. US books (that will go back to high-
school level to bring you up to speed, after which you want to sleep).
Generalisation, of course.

~~~
eru
Tried any classic French books?

------
mtkd
Sometimes you need to step away from something completely for a while

------
napperjabber
Who's game are you playing? Yours or Thiers?

------
sengork
Don't have fear of fashion trends.

------
devlim
i facing the same problem :(

------
a3voices
Look just finish a project, it doesn't matter what it is, and it'll resolve a
lot the issues you're fighting with.

~~~
andreasklinger
Agree.

Deadlines provide constraints. Constraints help with prioritization.

