I have not learned this much in my 20 years of working in design. The last 24 months were characterized by reading something new every day. Not only reading but actually applying in various ways. Something finds its way on my screen, I feel curious about it and start experimenting with it. At this point I don't even know if that is in any way applicable to my projects. I am just jumping in and starting working with it. I often gets blown away by it. Sometimes I even find a use case for the work I do. In any case: learning has never been more fun.
Four learning phases
To effectively learn new stuff it is important to not just find stuff and experiment with it. It needs more: reflection, thinking, repeating, etc. To be more specific there are phases of learning. It depends on the sources, really. But Kolb's cycle model seems quite reliable: Concrete Experience (CE): feeling. Reflective Observation (RO): watching. Abstract Conceptualization (AC): thinking. Active Experimentation (AE): doing The thing is: working with AI you're not capable of doing these cycles every time. In fact we are not allowed to do so. One day of work contains reading three articles on Substack, listening to two podcasts on Spotify and then scrolling LinkedIn for 5 min. The information intake is somewhat unreal. What is noise. What is signal? This is the first major challenge, when it comes to learning.
How to separate what to really learn and what to just digest?
One signal is to acknowledge the resurfacing information. Walking the dog or showering? What pops in your head might be worth learning more and doing a deep dive on it. If you want to be a little more intentional with it you can try the two bucket method: Digest is when you don't feel you want to experiment with it. Once you feel you want to try this (SIGNAL!) this is where you get active. Stop. Write one sentence about why it snagged you. That single sentence is the entry point into Kolb's cycle. Dedicate specific time slots for your learning sessions. On a work day there are calls and daily work tasks. There is not much room for 1-2 hours of deep dive. Create slots where you feel comfortable to deep dive. I personally like early mornings. Home is quiet, no people around. Notebook with one or two sentences about a topic is ready to give you a poke. Go.