You're Consuming Too Much and Creating Too Little
Source: Dev.to
Tracking My Learning Hours
Last year I tracked my learning hours:
- 120+ hours of YouTube tutorials
- 40+ hours of online courses
- Countless articles, blog posts, documentation pages
Sounds productive, right?
Then I tracked my building hours:
- 3 side projects started, 0 finished
- Maybe 30 hours of actual coding outside work
The ratio was embarrassing: 4:1 consumption to creation. I was a learning addict who never actually learned anything.
The Input/Output Trap
Developers fall into this trap constantly. We:
- Watch tutorial after tutorial
- Save hundreds of “read later” articles
- Bookmark GitHub repos we’ll “explore someday”
- Buy courses on sale “for when I have time”
It feels like progress. Our brains reward us with dopamine for “discovering” new information. But discovery isn’t learning. Consumption isn’t skill.
The uncomfortable truth: if you’re not building, you’re not learning.
Why We Prefer Input
-
Input is easy. Output is hard.
Watching a video is passive. Your brain can half‑engage while you feel productive. Building something requires focus, problem‑solving, failure, frustration. -
Input has no failure state.
You can’t “fail” at watching a tutorial, but you can absolutely fail at implementing what it taught. That failure feels bad, so we avoid it. -
Input is infinite.
There’s always another video, article, or course. Output has an end point—you have to ship something eventually.
So we keep consuming and keep not‑learning.
The Ratio That Matters
I started tracking my input/output ratio:
- Input: tutorials, courses, articles, videos, documentation
- Output: projects, code, writing, teaching, contributing
A healthy ratio for actual skill building? At least 1:1.
For every hour you consume, spend an hour creating.
- Watch a React video? Build a component.
- Read about Docker? Deploy something.
- Learn a new pattern? Refactor old code to use it.
Better yet: lead with output.
Don’t watch a tutorial on authentication first. Try to build it, get stuck, then watch the tutorial. Now you have context and you’ll remember.
The Tutorial Purgatory
You know the pattern:
- Want to learn X
- Search “X tutorial for beginners”
- Watch a 4‑hour video series
- Feel accomplished
- Never use X
- Forget everything
- Months later, repeat from step 1
This is tutorial purgatory: infinite consumption, zero retention.
The way out is simple but painful: build something before you feel ready. You’ll fail, get stuck, write bad code—that struggle is the learning. The tutorial was just entertainment.
What I Changed
The 1:1 rule
Match consumption time with creation time. Watched a 2‑hour course? Spend 2 hours building with it.
The 24‑hour rule
If I learn something, I must use it within 24 hours or it doesn’t count as learning.
The teach rule
If I can’t explain it simply, I didn’t learn it. Writing a blog post or explaining to a colleague forces real understanding.
The project‑first rule
Start the project before the tutorial. Use tutorials as reference, not curriculum.
Tracking the Balance
This input/output problem is why I built balance tracking into SkillFade.
Every skill shows two numbers:
- Learning events (input)
- Practice events (output)
The ratio is visible. When it skews too far toward input, you see it. No judgment—just data showing you’ve been consuming more than creating. It’s a mirror, and sometimes the reflection is uncomfortable.
The Question
Look at your last month:
- How many tutorials did you watch?
- How many projects did you ship?
- How many articles did you read?
- How many articles did you write?
- How many courses did you complete?
- How many things did you build with that knowledge?
If the first number is always bigger than the second, you’re not learning. You’re just watching.
What’s your input/output ratio? And what are you going to build this week?