All things personal

Balancing reading, listening and doing

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As a curious person in general and as a software professional in particular I feel I need to read a lot (or listen to podcasts) to stay up to date. Since I’m always curious, it’s also fun, too. I inform myself about a diverse set of topics: Programming, Design, Management, Parenting, Psychology, …
It has helped me in the past to know about a lot of things from reading.

But I’m also constantly unsure about my reading:

• Am I reading too much or too little.
• Am I reading the “right” things?
• Am I missing something important?
• Am I reading “useless” stuff?

It’s really hard to “measure”, whether investing an hour into reading/listening something will “pay off”. I know that a lot of the stuff I investigate doesn’t pay off in a streight forward manner. But it does form my understanding and thinking over time and that helps me in being successfull, I think (and hope).

But investing an hour into reading/listening also means an hour I can’t spend doing something. So a constant question is: Should I rather read about something or should I do (practice) something instead?

• How much are you reading?
• What are you reading?
• How much are you doing?
• What are you doing to practice?

Depending on my project situation I roughly spend between 45 and 120 minutes a day reading or listening. If I’m not in a project, it can be as high as 4-5 hours of reading/listening and investigating. I have a 45 minute commute to work, where I listen to podcasts or read. Nowadays I’m reading more and more stuff online (Blogs, Articles, podcasts, …) than books. My doing on the other hand is very limited, besides the things I do at work anyways. I invest relatively little time just for practice and playing around.

Having three little kids, I spend a lot less time for myself than I used to, of course.