Welcome to A Month Learning

Welcome to A Month Learning! My name is Jake Zuke and I'm writing about my journey spending a month's time to either learn something completely new, or pushing an existing skill or hobby of mine.

Hello! I'm Jake Zuke and A Month Learning is my personal journey to both discover and resurface all the things in life that make me tick. Given recent times I—like many others—have spent a lot of time doing some soul searching. What am I doing with my life, and why? Lofty questions often filled with existential dread without clear answers. We all know the feeling. My inward reflections after asking myself these questions made me realize some stuff.

1. I really like making things, learning things, and doing things. Most of the time when I start learning or doing something new, I get real jazzed about the idea for the first few weeks. Not long after, my interest fizzles out because I don't have any real goals in mind or a clear structure to capture what I'm learning.
2. I have a lot of hobbies that I enjoy dearly, but don't give myself the time of day to level up my skills. Not to mention there are so many things out in the world that I haven't even tried yet. So since I know I really like doing, making and learning—why am I not doing more of it?

A Month Learning...Something

The idea of what this blog is about is simple. I'll spend (roughly) a month's time learning something. My goal isn't necessarily to become a professional in any one specific area, though hopefully along the way I'll find some cool stuff I want to dig deeper into. It's for me to try new things, learn new skills, and generally develop a better framework for learning and producing. It's to give myself a better structure to push what I already know, and explore what I don't.

Another hopeful side effect of these musings will be to create a sort of launch pad to try and push all my stagnant ideas out in the world. I have ideas written down ranging everywhere from newsletters, to sketches of a beer flight holder, to half completed songs, to full-stack applications. All stuff I want to put out in the world, but right now they're just sitting in the ether collecting space dust. We all know ideas are worthless without action, so this is my attempt to finally figure out if these ideas are worth anything or if they can finally be released from my brain.

The things I'll try and learn will span everywhere from areas I think I'm already good at, things I'm trying out for the first (or nearly first) time, and everywhere in between. Whatever it is, I'll let you know how skilled I am at the thing when I'm starting out and what my goals are for the end of the month. Is it to finally finish my songs? Is it to learn how to work with 3D in Javascript? Is it to build this blog? Is it to make the perfect cocktail? I don't know yet, you'll have to follow me and find out.

Structure

Regardless of the thing I set out to learn, I'll likely follow a similar framework:

I'll start off with an intro post explaining what it is I'm learning, why I decided this is something I want to try, and the goal I'm setting for myself.

After a general intro, the first week will be exploratory. Gathering resources to read, watch and listen, finding courses to take, reaching out to people who I consider to be proficient at the thing I'm trying, etc. If it's something I'm already familiar with, I might use this week to start working on something or dive into a course I've been wanting to take.

The in between weeks will be me getting my hands dirty based on the information I gathered.

The last week will be the final push to see if I can accomplish what I set out to do. I'll either have something to show for it, or some kind of excuse about why it didn't work out.

At the end I'll have a retro and let you know the takeaways. Why I think I succeeded or failed to reach my goal, whether it's something I liked and will do again, what I wish I did or tried differently, etc.

Throughout the whole process I'll be sharing with you all the resources I came across, what kind of tools I'm using, and if there were any costs associated with the project.

Why a month?

It takes 10,000 hours to master a skill. Or only 20. It takes at least 8 days to form a habit. Or 21. Or 265.

There's a bunch of research around how long it takes to actually become good at a thing and stick with it. There are a number of different ways to go about this type of project. But based on my personal experiences, how I (and really humans in general) learn best is by doing. By doing something you're forced to get involved in the actual process of whatever that thing is. I want to give each area the time it deserves to decide if I love or hate it.

So instead of spending a bunch of time reading deeper into the best ways to learn, and studying all the different methodologies to find what is most effective just to leave leave myself with decision paralysis—I arbitrarily decided that spending around a month's worth of time is a good amount to just try something out and see what I can do.

It'll also be a good experiment to see what I can realistically do within a month. What I can learn in a space I already know, and what I can accomplish when I start from zero.

Really, something new every month?

Sort of. The idea is to set a rough outline so I can set goals and set out to achieve something realistic. Some things might take a lot longer, or a lot less time. But the idea is that is going to be uncovered through the process and I can make decisions as to if I want to dive further or give it up. I have some backup ideas for when there's a lot going on in life or I'm just not feeling motivated. Whether it's a "Today I Learned" (TIL) or "This Week I Learned" (TWIL) type post, I'll still try to capture something.

Keep in mind this is a rough structure. I won't necessarily start on the first of the month and end on the last. Sometimes I might take three weeks, sometimes maybe six. Maybe even a year like on my first series.

I hope along the way there are tidbits that you find useful, or funny, or entertaining, or makes you feel anything, really.

Go read about the very first thing I spent a month learning about and a year writing about—how to build a blog!