Ask HN: How to control computer science wanderlust?

There are two problems that you do need to handle somehow:

1. Out of all the things that I can read/investigate/research, which are the ones that I most should spend my time on (defined by whatever metric you want). The problem here is, you often don't know until you read them, and you don't have time to read them all. I don't have a good answer here.

2. Keeping the list of things you'd like to read from eating up more time than it should. It can take time from your work, your marriage, or your kids - if you let it. This becomes a matter of not letting it become an addictive or obsessive behavior, or at least of recognizing when it becomes so and then stopping when you recognize it.

I find it helps to really have a goal when setting out to learn new stuff. Rather than just "I want to learn more about blah" Think "I want to make a grid based turn based strategy game" or whatever, and then figure out what you need to learn to make that happen.

I try to do this, I still have lots of interesting unrelated things I try to learn about too, but I find this overarching goal helps focus everything, even if that goal changes every few months and is not always achieved.