Learning in Public

I’ve been thinking about the practice of learning in public — sharing your learning process, not just your finished work.

Why it’s uncomfortable

There’s a natural resistance to showing incomplete knowledge. When you publish something, there’s an implicit claim of expertise. Writing about what you’re still learning feels like exposing a vulnerability.

But I’ve come to see this discomfort as a feature, not a bug. It means you’re pushing into new territory.

What I’ve gained

Since I started writing about things I’m learning (rather than things I’ve mastered), several things have changed:

1. Faster learning: Writing forces me to organize my thoughts, which accelerates understanding.
2. Better feedback: People are surprisingly helpful when you honestly say “I don’t fully understand this yet.”
3. Connections: Some of my most meaningful professional relationships started from someone reading something I wrote while learning.

A sustainable practice

The key, I think, is to write for yourself first. The primary audience for a learning-in-public post is future you — someone who will benefit from having your thought process documented.

If others find it useful, that’s a bonus. But the baseline value is personal documentation.

I don’t aim for perfection or comprehensiveness. I aim for honesty about what I understand and what I don’t. That’s enough.