I sometimes notice that despite my best intentions, I’m cruising along on the knowledge that I already have without really pushing myself. If this goes on for too long, I start to lose the focus and energy that I always try to put into my work. It’s a dangerous thing which can creep up on you, until you spend your days wading through treacle just trying to think. This tends to jump you when you’re working a lot or commuting a long way.
Conversly I find that cramming and pushing my own learning makes me feel amazing. Treacle goes out of the window, and I feel sharp and active. I enjoy my work much more, because the cogs are whirring away at a much faster rate. Strangely I also require less sleep and generally feel more awake and alert.
So basically, if I’m looking sleepy or stupid just slap me and get me to read something new. At the moment I’m reading CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, Cameron Moll and Simon Collison.
Although I’ve encountered most of the material elsewhere, I believe the book is intended to consolidate all of the modern CSS development techniques that are spread across a number of different sites into a single volume. I think this is a great resource if you already have a good grounding in CSS. This will probably become the reference book that I leave lying around on my desk (although Eric will still get a lookin).
I also decided that I wanted to brush up on my pure programming skills a little, as I’ve spent most of my energy pursuing web development and graphic design for a while. I’m also reading C# Design Patterns with this in mind. Again I expect that I’ve covered a lot of the material in the book already, but it helps to be humble if you want to excel at something.
