If you are writing software, learn design patterns and create some example application using them to really understand where they fit. Doesn't really matter wh

If you are writing software, learn design patterns and create some example application using them to really understand where they fit. Doesn't really matter what language - object oriented one would obviously work best. There are also books on architecture and integration patterns. For everything in your tech stack - find out the sweet spot use cases and the ones where really you should use something else. For example with databases - don't repeat your data (aka normalization) is common - when does that not apply? Spinning your wheels would be things like trying new languages, frameworks, etc. for the sake of just trying them out. It's like going to a car dealer and test driving without any real need or intent to purchase - literally spinning wheels :) You might be fooling your brain that it is learning when you are really just trying something new that is nearly the same as something you already know.