On the lookout

Always be on the lookout for new and better ideas. Never be content. I mean, be happy with good results, celebrate your successes, but remember, there is always more, never get sleepy.

I have learned a lot from internet, there are many very informative websites with loads of free PDFs to download. Often quite high quality.
Then there is YouTube. Also lots of very good movies about all sorts of subjects concerning photography. The artistic as well as the technical side.
There are even more incredibly stupid and even misinforming movies on YouTube. So people think that it might be useful for others to watch a movie in which things are very badly or wrongly explained and it's often quite obvious that the makers don't get it themselves. So, you have to do a good search. I use the video download helper to download the video's and watch them through a player that I have coded myself. The main advantage is that I can view a video faster or slower that the normal speed. Some people talk very slow, so I speed it up not to fall asleep (and it saves time). If the subject is very complicated for me, I slow the speed down a tad. It's very convenient to be able to adapt the playing speed to my needs.
Another nice feature is, that I can make notes about times in the video which are important and I'd might like to watch again. So the notating makes easy returning to the passages. If it turns out that a video is not really good, I stop and delete it. There is so much, so don't waste your time on mediocre material. Twenty years ago, there was not enough information, or at least hard to come by. These days, there seems to be too much information and it's an art to find the good stuff.

Do not go to the supermarket with a list of things you do not want

Know what you want. Put your time into that. Straying or wandering about? First, NO, there is so much, that you be better of by focusing on what you're after and do exactly that. I can give you this advice, because it's one of the hardest things for me. I tend to get on fire about too many things and then I immediately want to go all the way and start burning the candle at both ends.
But also YES, because to wander about and do some straying, you get unexpected ideas that might expand the direction you're going in. So, it's always a balancing dance. The main thing is that you stay inspired and happy about the things you do.
My trying to keep the balance, is mainly between the artistic- and the technical side. I find both fascinating and if I don't watch out, I am all of a sudden studying heavy mathematical transformation algorithms and then suddenly I come to myself and realize I am a long way from making great photo's and prints. But on the other side, the technical knowledge and understanding often provides me with new artistic ideas. I like to work on the vanguard of what is possible and what has been done before. The excitement of discovering something new is an enormous thrill and I can dance in my house from joy when that happens. But also with an exceptional photo or print.