I’ve been working as a freelance content writer for the past six years. Lately, I realized that I haven’t been much of a learner in recent years. I didn’t upskill or read much.
I research quite a bit about the topics I’m writing on, but besides that, there hasn’t been much learning. Also, this research tends to be restricted to the piece I’m working on and doesn’t extend into other areas. So, there haven’t been any practical benefits outside of writing.
This atrophying of my brain started to bother me quite a lot, so last year, I dipped my toes into a bit of SQL, Microsoft Excel, and data visualization. Since I couldn’t see the practical utility of these skills in my work, my motivation waned, and I quit.
I’ve always enjoyed learning about marketing and music and have been thinking about learning something in one of these two areas. Considering I’ve been writing for six years and I keep getting drained out pretty regularly, I thought maybe it’s time to diversify my offerings and upskill myself in that direction.
And thus, the idea of un-atrophying the learning brain.
This way, I get to upskill while I’m working and since these skills can be juxtaposed with each other, I’m sensing it would be easier to branch out once I’ve enough portfolio projects.
A bit about my learning plan:
- Skills I’m focusing on: Conversion rate optimization (CRO), SEO, Google Analytics, and Looker Studio.
- Avoid tutorial purgatory: Watch the bare essential instructional videos (mostly the ones saved on LinkedIn Learning and Udemy), and get to projects. It’s happened to me that I keep watching new tutorials to get better at something without going anywhere with it. I’m going to avoid this.
- Share my learnings: This is to keep myself accountable. Share my portfolio projects or anything I do on GitHub (not sure if it’s the right platform, but I’ll figure something out) and LinkedIn.
- Won’t care for the writing: My writing in these posts would be substandard. I won’t care for writing an interesting intro or having a great hook. I just want to post to maintain accountability.
I haven’t figured out what or how frequently I’m going to write or post. I’ve been very reluctant to the learn in public idea to save myself from the shame of quitting. There are like ten side projects that I may have started and quit.
But I had this nagging feeling that I must do this if I want my new offerings to see the light of the day. So, I discussed this idea with Pranav Kale, and he forced me to get started with it asap as possible.
So here I am.