The Do-to-Read Ratio
How much time do you spend reading about Ruby and Rails, instead of actually doing something? Wich is coding, by the way 
If I read/watch/listen_to material on Rails during three hours, and I only code for one hour, I think I’m not being productive in my path to be a great Web developer. Anyway, 1/3 of my learning time is being spent on non-coding things.
I realized my time is much more productive if I follow some basic rules:
- Reading RSS once a week: it’s very easy to become so fascinated about the new stuff coming every day on the Ruby on Rails world. Not reading RSS everyday gives me 2 benefits: I don’t get overwhelmed and frustrated about what I don’t know yet (what is not a great motivator), and I save time to actually code;
- Sticking to a subject: I’m now studying RSpec and BDD. I’m studying the necessary to be comfortable at the subject;
- Studying in layers: after some rounds of subjecs I studied, I may get back to subjects I need to gain a deeper understanding. Like, at first I may study a little on BDD/RSpec and sometime later I’ll catch up on more advanced topics.
And also, while reading or watching a screencast you can always code along with the material pausing and resuming all the time (which is good, because for me it counts as coding).
