It can often times be difficult to find the time to stay up to date in a technology-related field. With the growth of the IT industry and of the Professional communities as a whole, that also means that there's far more to learn and it's coming about at an exponentially faster rate each year. How can each of us possibly stay current on everything?
It's not possible to know everything, but it is possible to stay up to date in a niche, That's what we must do: focus on a specialty, and consistently learn more about it. In this article, we'll discuss some tips for staying up to date, and keeping inspired in our fields.
Techniques for Staying Up to Date
  • Teach Others: The quickest route to learning something new and keeping up to date is to simply research it, of course. But, who's there to make you get that research accomplished? A great way to force yourself into the habit of constantly keeping up with the latest technologies and trends is to teach yourself by teaching others.
      If you can educate another in any way, you're likely to go above and beyond to truly understand the relative concepts, to make sure you're using best practices, and you're likely to spell the concept out in a way that truly understands, both for the learner and yourself – the teacher. Teaching can come in a wide variety of forms: blogging, writing tutorials, giving advice and feedback in forums, or doing private teaching consultations. It's possible to turn many of these into additional income streams as well, so keeping up to date isn't a chore, but rather can be more integrated with work.

  • Read Blogs: A classic indeed – just keep reading. Blogs are an awesome way to keep up to date because, of course, they're always updating themselves. Magazines, podcasts, screen casts, and other regularly updated publications are great to follow as well. Many of us get the majority of our information from these sources, and for good reason. It's easy to find both instant and quality material.
One important thing we can do to improve our learning quality when it comes to content-consumption even more is to always be on the lookout for new resources. It's easy to come to the same website at the start of each morning, or only keep subscribed to one podcast. It's great to keep checking for new content from quality sources, but it's also important to take in a wide variety of content. Doing so can help you to discover new things and keep inspiration alive.

  • Build Networking Relationships: Never underestimate the power of learning from each other and working together. Participate in forums, on social media, and always be active in the industry. While it's a great thing to always be consuming new information, and even better to be implementing it into our projects, what may be most helpful is building upon it via discussion.
By becoming active, sharing, and responding to others you can become aware of new trends more quickly and more actively. You can also get help on a new topic, or offer help more quickly as well. At the same time, discussion may lead to newer ideas and allow you to grow current trends and the knowledge behind new technologies to a new level.

  • Assess the resources available to you: from books to magazines to the Internet to formal training sessions, you can find technology-related information in a variety of sources. In the next section we’ll discuss the major categories you can look into. Explore your options and figure out which resources work for you.
The good news is that there are a lot of resources. The bad news is that there are a lot of resources. Now you have to weed them out. Choose those resources that have even a small chance of working for you, and then rank them in terms of the subject matter (some will be more important than others), your learning style, and your lifestyle (do you prefer the Internet to the library?).
Some resources you'll read only once and then you'll move on. Other resources you'll want to keep for future reference. If you truly integrate your technology education into your daily routine, it will only take a few minutes a day.

Conclusion
It's absolutely essential to stay current in any field, and especially a technology-related field. While there is new technology coming about, with it comes new trends, best practices, tools, and more. While it's important to stay up to date in order to stay relevant in an ever-changing field for our clients, it can also help us to keep interested in our practice as well as inspired.
There are surely countless more ways to keep up to date, and often times switching things up is the most powerful way to maintain motivated.