Speaking of scary things, a good way to face them is one at a time. I often start projects where I’m going to use familiar tools and strategies except for one new thing that I want to use or learn. For example, I was scared of learning Sass for a long time. CSS is already hard enough, the thought process went, without adding all these extra rules and setup. But eventually, on some side project, I decided that this would be the project where I would finally use Sass. It was my one new thing for that project.

The idea of one new thing is to incorporate one thing you want to learn into a familiar project. In the example above, the project stack is already familiar, it's something you have used over and over, it's even boring but then you add SASS. Now you have to learn how SASS works, the quirks it has, what it's good for, what it's not good for, how it incorporates to a project etc.

Some times we get overwhelmed because we are trying to learn too many things at once. I think this strategy can be effective in adding to the already established body of knowledge and experience you have. It's an effective way to grow.

---

Blake Watson - Finishing Side Projects