Browsing social media, watching TV or streaming videos, playing video games, and online shopping — the list goes on, but boils down to one thing: procrastination. This is old news — we already all know the old arch enemies of productivity. Procrastination (or resistance, as Steven Pressfield aptly puts it in his excellent book), in reality, is often more nefarious, and creeps into you life in very sophisticated ways, often innocuously guised as self-development and education.
Never stop learning, they say. This still holds. Books, workshops, seminars, courses, research, coaching, summits, and constant learning in general, while beneficial for the personal and professional development, can encroach into your life as next-level, more sophisticated forms of procrastination, ultimately leading to delayed action and lost opportunity.
Delayed action equals delayed progress. Not acting on your goals under the pretense of not being ready yet or not knowing enough yet still counts as procrastination. Continuously consuming new information or taking new courses without ever getting a chance to apply that knowledge anywhere will hamstring your development and, ultimately, your career.
Examples of constant learning procrastination
As mentioned above, constant learning is a kind of procrastination. It may transpire in multiple ways. If your unsure if you’re prone to it, check if you engage in any of:
- Taking numerous online courses (e.g., Coursera, Udemy) on various subjects without implementing the skills learned. Or participating in workshops and seminars to enhance skills but not practicing these skills in real-world situations.
- Constantly reading books on personal development, business, finance or technical subjects without applying the concepts.
- Continuously earning new certifications without benefiting in any way.
- Continuously learning new software or tools but not integrating them into your projects.
- Regularly meeting with multiple mentors or coaches but not taking actionable steps based on their advice.
- Attending conferences for networking and learning but not following up on connections or implementing new ideas.
A personal anecdote: among my former secondary school and university colleagues, I see that it is not the A-grade students who ultimately achieved success in life — those who embarked on successful enterprises, secured the best jobs, or built strong personal brands in the industry. Rather, it is often the school system’s underdogs and sometimes dropouts who, although they never really had a passion for diligent studying, dared to roll up their sleeves and get down to business early on, long before they became experts. Often, this was a gamble, and success in their respective fields was not guaranteed.
Constant learning is a comfort zone trap
Knowledge has democratized. There has never been a better time in history to learn new things. The internet is brimming with ample resources for gaining knowledge. With so many options available, the real challenge is now in choosing what to learn in the first place, rather than not being able to afford an online course. Even if you are not willing to shell out for Udemy, you can still learn from numerous free YouTube tutorials and blogs. You can explore anything from knitting to graphic design, often at no cost. Good time to be alive, isn’t it?
Yes, but there is a problem: constant learning lulls your drive and gets you stuck. It puts you on a never-ending landing strip, delaying your take-off. It provides you with a lab-like comfort zone where you are allowed to make mistakes, never having to face the real responsibility for your success — after all, you’re only learning stuff and thus not exposing your work to criticism or public opinion.
Constant learning is a convenient proxy for professional development. It’s an never-ending pre-school for your real career. Sounds simplistic? Maybe. Don’t get me wrong: I do believe continuous learning is a positive habit. After all, it leads to personal growth, adaptability, and success in many fields. Not to mention that, in certain industries like IT, ongoing education is essential to stay current and employable for years. It just has to be properly balanced with practical, hands-on approach, and a bit of elbow grease.
The key, however, lies in striking a balance between learning and doing things, and your intent behind the learning. Just ask yourself three quesions:
- Is the learning purposeful and directed toward you more specific goals?
- Is the knowledge you’re gaining applied, or just accumulated? More specifically, e.g. when reading a book or doing a course, do you actually believe the knowledge will stick and be useful one day?
- Are your learning efforts balanced with real-life action and implementation?
Psychological factors behind constant learning
I’ve already established constant learning is a kind of procrastination, so let’s now list the probable psychological factors people still engage in it:
Comfort zone
Learning can be comfortable compared to taking action, especially if the action involves risk, uncertainty, or potential failure. By continually seeking more knowledge, a person might feel productive without actually making progress.
Fear of inadequacy
Some people may believe they need to learn “just a little more” before they are ready to start. This can be driven by a fear of failure, not being good enough, or not knowing enough, leading them to delay action indefinitely.
Perfectionism
Perfectionists get trapped in a cycle of endless preparation and polishing of their work. They never feel ready to take actual action. They often feel they must master every aspect of a subject before they can begin a project. This can result in endless learning as a way to prepare perfectly, thus avoiding the imperfection of starting and possibly failing.
Analysis paralysis
With an abundance of information available, constant learning can lead to analysis paralysis, where the individual is so overwhelmed by choices and details that they cannot make a decision or move forward.
Illusion of productivity
Learning new things can give a false sense of progress and accomplishment. It feels productive because gaining knowledge, after all, is generally valued. It is an easily accessible proxy for productivity, but if this learning is never applied in practice, it will not contribute to real progress.
Action = learning
Action, even when you’re not ready for it, is an extremely valuable form of learning. Learning by doing things is very valuable, because it makes you stick to actionable, applicable and truly relevant stuff. As someone wiser than me once said:
The only knowledge that sticks is what’s necessary
Acting towards achieving your goals will force you to learn things as you go, and potentially expose you to new challenges. I would go on to say that most of the world’s exceptional talents are those who just did stuff and slowly worked their ways towards perfection. Take any big founder, musician, or painter in history. They never asked anybody’s guidance. Also, surprisingly many of them did things first, and then became experts in the process — not the other way round. Simply put: don’t wait until you gain expertise in a subject. Just act, you’ll be fine.
Modern world is too dynamic for dissecting things and figuring stuff out before doing. A first mover’s advantage is undeniable, and usually results from experimenting and doing things before proper resources even exist to learn how to do these things. Off the top of my head, a fitting example here would be AI and language models expertise in general: there is simply not enough time to learn these things first and do stuff later.
The technology is evolving so fast that before you gain the knowledge and confidence to apply this knowledge, it may already be irrelevant. In short: doing stuff and learning as you go is better advice than reading 10 books with no action or experimentation.
Solution: Balance your learning with practice
To avoid falling into the trap of learning as a form of procrastination, you need to properly balance it with action. Consider the following simple strategies:
- Be more intentional when engaging in learning. Why do you need this konwledge? Do you really need it in the first place? How you will apply what you’ve learned? Choose learning activities that include practical components, such as projects or real-world tasks.
- Set specific time limits for learning and ensure the rest of your time is dedicated only to real action. You could dedicate one day per week for learning, and the remaining days for doing things.
- Learn only the stuff you’re currently working on, and constantly verify your knowledge.
- Question your resources.
- Teach others to solidify your knowledge.
By being mindful of how you balance learning and action, you can ensure that your pursuit of knowledge enhances your productivity rather than hinders it.
If you liked the tips, buy me a coffee to keep me going, thanks!
