Don't do all that crap. For me I try out sites, discover things I like and then search for it along with the term -jquery or "vanilla javascript" and work out

Don't do all that crap. For me I try out sites, discover things I like and then search for it along with the term -jquery or "vanilla javascript" and work out just the code I need. For reading: For HTML find a good book on the basics (I had used Visual Quickstart Guide to HTML, but I bet there might be better ones now), for CSS I recommend "Stylin' with CSS" which will keep things simple. Maybe "Handcrafted CSS" to learn how to refine styles even more. Another great common sense design book is "Don't Make Me Think" will go a long way into determining what would be best in design and UX. You will find when you drill down to that - you don't need all that much much JavaScript at all. A lot of those templates and frameworks are only great when you don't know what you want but will quickly/easily get the pretty pictures and slick animations, later there's a price to pay to maintain or refactor.