For skill development, depth is for work time. Breadth is for free time.
Advice to new grads, volume 2
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Advice to new grads, volume 2: For skill development, depth is for work time. Breadth is for free time.
You’re going to get a lot of advice from people to learn as much as possible. The type of easily-agreeable stuff that sounds great…but isn’t that useful.
Things like:
“Study up in your free time.”
“Put in the time. Work late to get better.”
“Read books by the experts in your field.”
Etc etc. Whatever your domain is, go as deep as possible. As fast as possible.
Thanks, Captain Obvious.
It misses two important things:
1. Burnout is real. You can only dedicate so much time to one thing before your brain tells you to F off.
Human beings are dynamic. We not only have various interests, we need them to keep ourselves engaged and balanced.
👉If you geek out on one thing too long, you’re going to start hating it.
2. Breadth of interests builds wide ranging life experience.
Experience that can be drawn from to solve new problems. And get this: actually innovate.
No one comes up with The Big Idea to solve a new problem or start a business out of thin air. They land on it after pulling from past life experiences and applying them in different ways.
Range is the most underrated and important skill. And no one will train you for range. You do it on your own.
👉Don’t study your craft in your free time. Study other things. Things you enjoy and get excited about.
It doesn’t even matter what those interests are. As you grow in your career they’ll become valuable in unexpected ways.
Remember: depth in learning (established best practices in your field) is table stakes. The baseline. The prerequisite to do anything well.
👉But limiting your breadth of knowledge makes you an ordinary worker bee.
Volume 3 (and maybe 4) coming soon-ish.
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