If you find out, let me know. :-) I recognize that I get a dopamine hit from learning new things and so tend to just keep digging in. That said, for a lot of t

If you find out, let me know. :-) I recognize that I get a dopamine hit from learning new things and so tend to just keep digging in. That said, for a lot of things, there seems to be very roughly three levels of "understanding"; 1) Surface level - this describes the basic principles of the thing, how it relates to other things, and how it influences or is influenced by other significant things. 2) Engineering level - this level then has the information needed to develop a new thing, or modify an existing thing, or counter or enhance a thing. Sort of the fundamentals of the thing's makeup and/or construction and lets you find or make new things of a similar type. 3) Foundation level - this level then is where the nature of the thing, how it fits into the overall understanding of things in the universe and usually the process by which it's nature has come to be understood. This level will have a set of tools and processes that have evolved from the general set of tools to evaluate the nature of these things more specifically. So level #1 is pretty easy and when I'm not thinking I'm going to contribute new original work to the topic or technology is where I'll stop if I'm just trying to use what ever it is to get something else done. Level #2 is where I end up most often because I'm curious and learning something to that level can often inform how applicable it will be in other efforts. So if a technology is generally useful to a wide variety of applications I'll get down to this level, if it is pretty specialized for one kind of application, I'm less likely to go into its engineering. Level #3 I don't go as often. The calculus is what will I learn vs what else could I have learned in the same time. My basic education focused on physics, electrical engineering, computer science, and some chemistry with the math necessary to support that. When level #3 is pushing into fields that are adjacent to that base like geology, biology, and philosophy I find there is a bigger hit to go back and pick up more fundamentals and that can be time consuming. So I have to ask myself do I really want to know this topic at a fundamental level or not? But all of that to say that I am not a good role model here, I often spent more time learning about something than my employer's would like. A common experience in my work career was an increasingly irritated/impatient manager that I had not gotten "anything" done, followed by surprise that I had solved problems they didn't even know they were going to have. You don't get credit for knowing more than you "need" to know to accomplish a task. (Well I would give credit for that to people who worked for me, but it was rare that someone I worked for to credit that). So two answers; In your job, stop when you know enough to make progress to please your task masters. In your life, never stop learning new things.