Lot of great points and wisdom in your post. It absolutely does feel overwhelming at times, and once you start feeling competent, BOOM! another new monthly update with a bunch more new stuff to learn (which is both one of the reasons I love Power BI, and also why at times it feels like being on a gerbil wheel…)
I think your focus on the four Power BI pillars primarily is spot-on. Even with “just that”, with a solid foundation there, you will be far ahead of most of the world, who are still manually cranking out Excel reports and analyses.
We should have a side conversation about your R study. How you optimally study and learn R as a PBI user is VERY different IMO than how you do so as a standalone R user, since the vast majority of the data cleaning/prep in R can be done in PQ, which then calls the analytical and/or visualization functions in R. I’ve actually never seen an R course designed around PBI users, which is why I decided to develop one for the Enterprise DNA Portal. Just want to make sure you’re not spending valuable and limited learning/practice time on stuff you don’t need to know.
The 1% concept is gold. When I was younger I used to powerlift, and my coach was focused on a training regimine that added 1-2 pounds to the bar each week. As he used to say “doesn’t sound like much, but in five years that’s 250-300 pounds added to each lift, and in ten years that’s the ability to lift a school bus”.
- Brian