Find a problem that is not easily solved by your current knowledge&#x2F;experience and explore it.  Having a clear goal does wonders to provide focus and limit the chances of being overwhelmed by &quot;all the things.&quot;<p>When you address the problem, don&#x27;t immediately jump to the newest framework&#x2F;stack that claims to solve it but instead try and use the majority of your existing skills and knowledge with one or two modifications... even if they are &quot;out of date.&quot;  Going through the effort of adapting existing skills allows you to better understand the underlying problems as well as re-live (in blessedly compressed time) the iterations that occurred to arrive at the current accepted solutions.  There&#x27;s a lot of wisdom to be found in taking that journey.<p>Learning the &quot;why&quot; of things is far more important than just acquiring the operational skills for a given technology.