{"id":714,"date":"2026-02-18T19:20:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/?p=714"},"modified":"2026-02-18T19:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:28:10","slug":"get-in-the-habit-of-learning-daily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/miscellaneou\/get-in-the-habit-of-learning-daily\/","title":{"rendered":"Get in the Habit of Learning Daily"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>TL;DR<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In software, <em>daily learning<\/em> is the real career cheat code.<\/li>\n<li>Use the <strong>Feynman technique<\/strong> to turn \u201cI think I get it\u201d into real understanding.<\/li>\n<li>Read less, <strong>summarize more<\/strong> (processing beats re-reading).<\/li>\n<li>Apply the <strong>30\u2011second rule<\/strong>: summarize right after reading, in your own words.<\/li>\n<li>Use a <strong>Mind Palace<\/strong> (Ramon Campayo style) for flows\/lists you must recall fast (e.g., OAuth, some architecture, etc.).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As pompous as it may sound, we do need to work on ourselves, or we&#8217;re just gonna fall behind. There&#8217;s no <strong>stagnation<\/strong> in learning; it&#8217;s only going downhill.<\/p>\n<p>And in software engineering, that\u2019s not motivational woohoo new age stuff; it\u2019s just a reality. The tools change, the \u201cbest practices\u201d change, and the stuff you learned two years ago might now be a footnote in a migration guide. <em>And don&#8217;t even get me started on all the AI tools (or let alone models)&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So if you opted for a software engineering field (and, I hope, for good reasons &#8211; $$$ not being one of them), one would expect from you that you have it clear in your mind that you&#8217;re in for the long run and for life-long learning. <em>You&#8217;ve heard this one; it&#8217;s a marathon&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Here I&#8217;m going to share few of the techniques that I picked up along that long way, and will be updating the post once I find something new and useful.<\/p>\n<p>The goal isn\u2019t to \u201clearn everything\u201d (because\u2026 good luck with that \ud83d\ude05). The goal is to build a <em>habit<\/em> that compounds. Ten minutes a day beats a weekend binge once a month \u2014 especially if you actually retain what you learn.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s get into the techniques.<\/p>\n<h2>The Feynman technique<\/h2>\n<p>This one is simple, slightly uncomfortable (in a good way), and brutally effective.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 1<\/strong>. Choose the concept you want to understand<\/p>\n<p>Take a blank piece of paper and write that concept at the top of the page.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 2<\/strong>. Pretend you\u2019re teaching the idea to someone else<\/p>\n<p>Write out an explanation of the topic, as if you were trying to teach it to a new student.<\/p>\n<p>When you explain the idea this way you get a better idea of what you understand and where you might have some gaps.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 3<\/strong>. If you get stuck, go back to the book<\/p>\n<p>Whenever you get stuck, go back to the source material and re-learn that part of the material until you get it enough that you can explain it on paper.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 4<\/strong>. Simplify your language<\/p>\n<p>The goal is to use your words, not the words of the source material.<\/p>\n<p>If your explanation is wordy or confusing, that\u2019s an indication that you might not understand the idea as well as you thought \u2013 try to simplify the language or create an analogy to better understand it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Quick takeaway:<\/strong> if you can\u2019t explain it simply, you don\u2019t understand it well enough <em>yet<\/em>. And that\u2019s fine \u2014 now you know exactly what to fix.<\/p>\n<h2>Read less, but process more<\/h2>\n<p>It&#8217;s better to read 10 pages and then write your own summary of it than to read 10 pages 5 times.<\/p>\n<p>This is one of those things that sounds obvious, but most of us still don\u2019t do it. We re-read because it <em>feels<\/em> productive. But writing a short summary forces your brain to do the actual work.<\/p>\n<p>\u26a0\ufe0f No, AI sumarizing it for you just isn&#8217;t the same thing.<\/p>\n<p>If you want a tiny routine that works:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Read 5\u201310 pages (or one article).<\/li>\n<li>Close it.<\/li>\n<li>Write 5\u201310 bullet points in your own words.<\/li>\n<li>Bonus: write one \u201cso what?\u201d sentence (why this matters).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>That\u2019s it. Not fancy, but works like a charm.<\/p>\n<h2>The 30-second rule<\/h2>\n<p>This one is actually an addendum to the one above. Right after you read an article sum it up in 30 seconds in your own words.<\/p>\n<p>I love this because it\u2019s so small you can\u2019t really complain you \u201cdon\u2019t have time\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Right after you finish reading, ask yourself:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What was this about?<\/li>\n<li>What\u2019s the main idea?<\/li>\n<li>What will I do differently because of it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then say it out loud, or type it into Notes \/ Notion \/ a journal \/ Slack DM to yourself \/ add it to SOUL.md. Whatever. Just make it <em>yours<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>And voil\u00e0 \u2014 your brain gets a \u201chey, this matters\u201d signal.<\/p>\n<h2>Memory Palace<\/h2>\n<p>Think of it as <strong>saving knowledge into a \u201cplace\u201d you can walk through later<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>How it works:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pick a place you know well (your apartment, your office, your route to the gym).<\/li>\n<li>Choose 5\u201310 fixed \u201cstations\u201d in it (door, couch, kitchen sink, balcony\u2026).<\/li>\n<li>Attach each thing you want to remember to one station using a vivid, slightly ridiculous image.<\/li>\n<li>To recall: mentally walk through the place and \u201csee\u201d each station again.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Your brain is insanely good at remembering <em>places + visuals<\/em>, so we\u2019re basically cheating by storing information in that format.<\/p>\n<h3>Example: memorizing the OAuth authorization code flow<\/h3>\n<p>Let\u2019s say you keep mixing up the steps. Put them into your apartment:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Front door<\/strong> \u2192 <em>User clicks \u201cSign in with Google\u201d<\/em> (imagine a giant Google logo as a doormat).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hallway mirror<\/strong> \u2192 <em>Redirect to Authorization Server<\/em> (mirror \u201credirects\u201d you somewhere else).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Couch<\/strong> \u2192 <em>User consents<\/em> (a big \u201cAllow\u201d button is sitting on the couch).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Kitchen sink<\/strong> \u2192 <em>Authorization code returned to your app<\/em> (a \u201cCODE\u201d label floating in the water).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fridge<\/strong> \u2192 <em>App exchanges code for tokens<\/em> (fridge opens and spits out \u201cACCESS TOKEN\u201d and \u201cREFRESH TOKEN\u201d cans).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Now when you need it, you don\u2019t \u201cremember text\u201d \u2014 you just walk through your apartment and the steps pop out.<\/p>\n<p>Where this shines:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>flows (auth, payments, onboarding)<\/li>\n<li>checklists (incident response, release steps)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI always forget the order\u201d problems<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You may want to dig into this one a bit more, and here is a great book to do so: <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4bWsgzf\">Moonwalking with Einstein<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>F motivation -&gt; make it automatic<\/h2>\n<p>Here\u2019s the part most people skip: <strong>make daily learning automatic<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>A simple setup:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Pick a daily slot<\/strong>: right after coffee, during lunch, before bed (IMHO, the hardest, and I don&#8217;t recommend it for anything except light reading to fall asleep easier).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pick a tiny goal<\/strong>: 10 minutes, 1 article, 5 pages, 1 concept.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pick a capture format<\/strong>: one note per day (title + 5 bullets).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you want the lowest friction version: do the <strong>30-second rule<\/strong> only. Every day. No excuses. Even on days when you\u2019re tired and your brain feels like mashed potatoes.<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>You don\u2019t need to \u201cgo hard\u201d to get better. You need to be consistent.<\/p>\n<p>Working on yourself daily is basically the job description in software engineering. The tech changes, the tools change, the expectations change \u2014 but the habit of learning daily keeps you steady. Even if AI does &quot;take our jobs&quot;, being someone who can grasp\/learn things quickly is going to be a differentiator.<\/p>\n<p>Use the Feynman technique when you want real understanding, use short summaries to retain more, use the 30-second rule to make it effortless, and sprinkle in memory techniques like the mind palace when you want to remember more than your brain would normally allow.<\/p>\n<p>Like I said, I\u2019ll keep updating this post once I find something new and useful.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve got something that made a difference for you, hit me up in the comments \ud83d\udc4d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TL;DR In software, daily learning is the real career cheat code. Use the Feynman technique to turn \u201cI think I get it\u201d into real understanding. Read less, summarize&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneou"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2372,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions\/2372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}