Take the time to learn

As internet professionals we’re often so busy being productive that we often neglect one of the most important aspects of our job. Ourselves. We often only learn out of necessity, well I’m going to ask you to be more active if your professional growth, and incorporate it into your everyday routiene.

Prepare for the future

Who knows what projects you’re going to be working on in the future. Especially in this rapidy changing industry. Be sure to look out for upcoming technologies and take it upon yourself to learn a little about them.

Expand your horizons

If you’re primarily a designer and don’t touch HTML or CSS, buy a book or check out W3Schools and brush up on some. This will give you a greater appreciation for the work that developers do and will also familiarize you with the capabilities and give you new ideas for your designs.

Show the world your passion

It also demonstrates that you have passion for your work. Which is great when you have a once in a lifetime opportunity come up and they see that you’re not only knowledgable about what you do but hungry to learn more.

Learning increases your value to the company

It gives you a greater understanding of the big picture

As much as employers prefer specialized workers they also appreciate people who understand the whole process. People just work better together when they understand and respect each others responsibilities.

It speeds up productivity

Your greater understanding of the process will also speed up your productivity. For example, imagine the value of a designer who knows a little about PHP. They will understand some of the capabilities of PHP and can incorporate those ides into their design. They will also know if something that seems seemingly simple will take a lot of work to do. Such as a dynamic calendar.

It also speeds up your productivity if you work alone. You’ll be able to accomoplish a task much faster if you’ve already had even a basic introduction to it. You’ll know where to find the information and you won’t have to research as much.

It makes you feel more fullfilled

A the end of the day, after we’ve finished all our work and learned a little bit while we’re at it, we just feel much better. Because not only did we do the work to pay the bills, we invested a little bit in ourselves and our future.

Spend half an hour a day learning

Set a goal

Come up with a goal such as “this week I’m going to learn about PHP” and then stick to it. See how much you know by the end of the week.

Keep a notebook

Learning is all about exploration, jot down ideas and thoughts that you get into a notebook. It will be a great resource later and a good way to reflect back on what you were learning.

Ask questions!

There are tons of passionate people out there who want to help. Talk to people in your company, or if you can’t, ask online.

There’s no pressure

Don’t sweat it if your questions seems stupid or you can’t do it right the first time. This is an exploratory process and you’re going to make mistakes. Don’t put added pressure on yourself, you’ve got enough people doing that to you already! Be nice to yourself and enjoy the process!