My 2018 Learning Plan

Every so often I like to come up with a learning plan for the year/month/week. Last year’s didn’t work out the way I hoped for a number of reasons (like having a baby, and going solo). But this year I’m doubling my efforts and came up with a plan where I set aside at least 5 hours every week to learn. So what am I going to learn this year? Let’s take a look!

My learning objective for 2018 is, first and foremost, to make my own online courses better. That’s the main driver for my learning plan. The secondary objective is to learn some new coding skills. Since leaving Crowd Favorite, I can already feel my coding skills diminishing, and that’s not cool.

Online Courses

My main form of learning, given my main objective, is to take a bunch of online courses from different sources. The list so far, in order, is:

James Patterson’s Masterclass on Writing: I’m just about done with this one. I chose it first for a couple of reasons. Since I heard about Masterclass, I wanted to see how they worked. Taking this class has given me lots of great insight and ideas on how I can better the learning experience for my students.

I chose Jame Patterson’s course specifically because I’m curious about his process, one can always be a better writer, and to be honest, before the class I wasn’t a big fan. But I figured you can learn just as much from people you don’t like as with people you do like. And so far, I like the course a lot.

Hollens Creator Academy: Next up after the Masterclass is the online course by Peter Hollens about how to make a living online. I interviewed Peter for my podcast and I’m a huge fan of his. I’m taking his class because I’m generally interested in how he produces videos and makes money. I think we’re closely related (though he’s much more entertaining) so I think I can gain a lot from his course for my own courses as well as my business.

CSS Grid by Wes Bos: Wes has a new (free!) course out on how to use CSS grid. I love his courses and think he’s a great educator. Plus, I have only a basic knowledge of CSS Grid, and I’d like to get a lot better.

Laravel and Vue.js on Laracasts: This course is where all of my learning objectives will converge. I’m curious as to how Jeffry Way sets up his site because I’m aiming to do something similar; I know I’ll get lots of great ideas for my own courses. However, I’ve also been itching to learn Laravel, so I’m super excited to learn a new programming skill in the process. Learning it from Jeffry will be even better.

Gutenberg Development: I’m also excited to take this course, by my friend Zac Gordon. We’re working together on Gutenberg stuff (I’m handling the beginner/user education) so I’d like to see what he’s up to (and you know, learn how to make stuff for Gutenberg).

Books

Aside from online courses, I want to read a lot more this year. I did OK last year, but I barly hit my goal. I spent too much time playing games on my phone. This year, taking a page from my friend Robby and Matt Mullenweg, I’ve rearranged my iPhone home screen:

I moved the social media apps to the last page, in a folder. I put my reading apps front and center. Now, when I open my phone, I end up reading an article, or if I have a little more time, a book.

So what’s on my reading list? Here’s what I’m working on now:

• Audio Engineering 101: This book has been great in teaching me the basics of mixing audio and what everything means. It’s coming in handy, since I have a spiffy new preamp.
• Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells us About Raising Successful Children: Let me just say…I don’t know what a smart baby looks like. My daughter does things I wouldn’t expect a baby to do, but I don’t have many exceptions. But people have pointed out that my daughter is “very smart.” It happens enough that it got my wife and me thinking: how can we nurture that? So I picked this book up. I hope it’s not just a bunch of nonsense.
• Leonardo da Vinci: I want to read more biographies, and this seems like a great place to start.

From here, I have a growing list of books I want to read, and I’ll probably go with whatever I feel like reading that day. But I definitely want to read books about:

• Teddy Roosevelt
• Winston Churchill
• Augmented Reality
• Time Management
• More fiction

Tracking Progress

I’d like to say I’ll review the books and courses here on my blog, but I’m not sure I can commit to that. Twitter is probably the best way to find my thoughts. I’ve also been pretty diligent about using Good Reads for books, so there’s that.

What are you learning this year? Any great books or courses you’d recommend? Leave them in the comments!