Planned Learning

Planned Learning

Image by Dan Dimmock on Unsplash

FINAL UPDATE 31st of August 2020:

This post first appeared in April 2020 and was meant as a “live to-learn list”. It then gradually evolved into a generic TODO list. Its openness on the web had advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, it certainly added some level of implicit accountability: sharing goals and progress is a proven incentive to keep at it. The familiarity of the environment (just another .md file!) made its updating almost frictionless.

At the same time, I didn’t feel comfortable sharing here also more personal goals or sensible data, which ultimately made me look for a more holistic solution. I have been using the BulletJournal method since the beginning of August and I am loving it so far (thanks to @britanymeadows for the encouragement!).

Here’s the list of achieved goals since April:

These are the goals I have not updated here since I switched to bullet journaling. Some of them are actually in the works!

UPDATE 9th of August 2020: Completed my summer journey through the Lightbend Academy! All conquered badges are available here on Acclaim. I have started using Bullet Journaling and it feels nice so far. Migrated my side project to Akka HTTP 10.2.0.

UPDATE 6th of August 2020: Worked on the side project, added to this list and started the Akka Cluster Sharding course, decided to try Bullet Journaling and got a notebook for it. Gave a virtual talk at the Software Circus meetup!

UPDATE 4th of August 2020: Completed the Akka Cluster - Fundamentals course on Lightbend Academy, more progress on the side project, watched a video about Polynote.

UPDATE 31st of July 2020: Working hard on the side project, completed the Akka Streams for Scala - Professional on Lightbend Academy, started reading new books!

UPDATE 26th of July 2020: Worked a lot on the side project (but getting somewhere!), built the mechanical Preonic keyboard months after its purchase, thanks to my friend Nicola.

UPDATE 14th of July 2020: Super busy days with moving, but now back here! Worked best effort on my side project.

UPDATE 8th of July 2020: Worked on my side project.

UPDATE 6th / 7th of July 2020: More moving, but I completed the guitar course on Fender Play!

UPDATE 5th of July 2020: Still in moving mode. Rearranged items with the dones at the bottom. Done one guitar lesson.

UPDATE 3rd and 4th July 2020: Moving days. But I managed to finish the Isaac Asimov book.

UPDATE 2st of July 2020: Again not much from this list - I’ve been packing all day, calling utility providers, renting a van for the move and so forth. At the end of the day I did one guitar lesson and a mindful session before going to bed.

UPDATE 1st of July 2020: Not much as we got the jey to our new apartment and I got busy with that. But I managed to do the Paw tutorial and test it in conjunction with my little side project.

UPDATE 30th of June 2020: One more guitar lesson (getting tougher!), worked a lot on the little project with Akka & Scala.

UPDATE 27th, 28th and 29th of June 2020: Ahead with the guitar course, worked full steam on my little stealth project with Akka & Scala. Started reading The Caves Of Steel by Isaac Asimov.

UPDATE 26th of June 2020: Watched videos from the Codemotion DeepLearningConf 2020. Either terrible quality (unreadable slides) or matters too complicated for me. Went ahead with the guitar lessons in the morning. Wathed the talk about Pacman, AI and Reactive Streams by Mary Grygleski and Oleh Dokuka.

UPDATE 25th of June 2020: Completed the Akka course on Lightbend Academy, and added two more! Added videos to watch from the Codemotion DeepLearningConf 2020. One guitar lesson done.

UPDATE 24th of June 2020: Finished the Lovecraftian anthology Acolytes of Cthulhu. More work on the Akka course (it’s a long one!).

UPDATE 23rd of June 2020: One more Fender Play lesson, went further with the Akka course on Lightbend Academy and worked on my Akka-Scala side project.

UPDATE 22nd of June 2020: One Fender Play lesson. Done a lot today but not much was on this list. Re-completed the last Reactive Architecture exam. Prepared slides for my next talk. Spent time with a friend who leaves for two months tomorrow.

UPDATE 21st of June 2020: Finished the Ratatype course! Will try to embed it in my everyday typing. Additionally, I am re-taking the Reactive Architecture courses as a refresher and collecting my badges. One more guitar lesson on Fender Play.

UPDATE 20th of June 2020: Started the Akka course on Lightbend Academy. Completed lesson 13 on Ratatype.

UPDATE 19th of June 2020: Completed the Data Engineering course on Lightbend Academy! 🥳 Couple more guitar lessons, one level Ratatype. Added one Lightbend Academy course to the ToLearn list.

UPDATE 18th of June 2020: More lessons of the Data Engineering course. One lesson of Ratatype. Completed level 4 on the Fender Play path.

UPDATE 16th of June 2020: Started Data Engineering course on Lightbend Academy. Added one goal at the bottom. Updated my CV. Watched Jeroen Rosemberg’s talk about CloudFlow.

UPDATE 15th of June 2020: Completed Scala course on Lightbend Academy, watched Artur Skowronski’s video from ScalaUA. Progress on Ratatype and on the guitar. Watched the video about the blockchain. Also bought a desk fan and had breakfast with a friend. Good day.

UPDATE 14th of June 2020: Contract finally ended on the 12th of June. Already progress on something, starting with the refresher Scala course from Lightbend Academy. I’m also being consistent with Ratatype completing one lesson per day.

UPDATE 6th of June 2020: Contract extended again until the 12th of June! Learning postponed.

UPDATE 4th of May 2020: My last working month is May 2020 instead of April 2020!

ORIGINAL POST on April 11th, 2020:

Like many others, I find myself out of work during the Covid19 crisis of Spring 2020.

I imagine that finding work in the coming months would be challenging but probably feasible. After a little thinking, I decided to take a little time for myself. A carefree month or two, then figure out what comes next. I am privileged enough to be able to afford a couple of months without income, and in fact every time I’ve done it before it has always had a positive impact on my life.

April is my last month of work, so I started collecting ideas on what to do/learn after. At the moment of writing, it is very unclear to which extent we will be able to resume ‘normal’ life. My home country Italy announced that confinement measures will be in place well into May and the Netherlands (where I live) could follow on the same path.

This post is meant to be a living “To-Learn” list. I will add/or modify items from now to the end of my off-work period. Careful planning is one of the most effective strategies in the incredible book Deep Work by Cal Newport, and this coarse level of planning is the first step. Edits will be documented – the goal is a sort of ‘event-sourced’ list.