Hi friends. I’m currently looking for some advice on studying while working full time.
Facts about me:
I’m currently working a full time job (40 hours) and it is my dream to become a self taught web developer (full stack).
I am currently studying the “Responsive Web Design Certification”. My end goal is to earn all 6 certifications.
A few things…
I am currently trying to make a habit of studying coding every day even if its only for 15 minutes. ( I’ll take what I can give to myself). When it comes to studying… I do have a few days where it is hard for me to focus and study, thus makes it harder for me to retain information.
My study goals:
-Ideal - study 20 hours a week
-Realistic - study 13-15 hours a week.
I have been pondering on few questions
Any advice or tips on how to self-study while working full time? And possibly how to achieve my ideal goal??
Any advice on not getting burnt out or drained?
3.How much time do you take to study during the week?
4.Any advice how to keep up consistency with habit building like studying everyday?
Also, What would help with retaining information? I sometimes have days where its hard for me to retain information I studied.
If you are planning to study 2 hours everyday, I suggest you split it in four periods, 30 minutes each, so you can do for example:
30 minutes before work
30 minutes during lunch
30 minutes during work break
30 minutes when you get home
I use a Pomodoro tool (30/30 on Apple Store) to control my available time. This strategy usually works for me, because I have problems focusing in one activity for more than one hour. Besides, two hours a day is a very good pace for someone who is also dealing with a regular job.
I would say this about time management and general way of dealing with your concern about committing the time to complete the tasks at hand. you are right that you do need to dedicate as much time as possible when and where you can.
Where you tripped up over was when you begin to quantify it. By applying measures before the task is even set about, it makes achieving them even more difficult. This is a PM’s personal advice about managing time on a project.
If you commit to yourself that you will get it done as best as you possibly can, time is something you have to give yourself alot of, without it then you would be in a situation where, you are really good at getting shit done quickly but not correctly.(which is more costly in the long run- just suck it up and find a pace that allows you to progress in small bytes, this isnt a marathon its a fecking triathlon)
Now to steal a bit from thermodynamics, the Work done in a system is equal to the Sum of the Energy it takes over the period of Time in which the work is completed. So lets apply that to this scenario, you have a finite amount of time and copious amounts of energy, the work that you need to get done is the goal that you set yourself. In this case, being a Full Stack Web Dev (same here btw =) )
The best way to look at this equation is to think that time is finite, okay where can I make trade-off to increase my finite source of time, (bye-bye friends and GTF fam!) your job is your job, but think is there ways I can even shave off maybe lets say for argument sake a half hour a day, maybe by increasing my own personal productivity rate and not letting management know that I am getting the work done quicker so that way I can concentrate for 15 minutes on some article on MDN or somewhere that is more of a net benefit than this job (in the long term if you do get to acheive your dream- but never compromise on the short-term objective (£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£). This is all about mindset, having arbitrary measures is a failed way to design your own study plan. Get that excell sheet out, and build a plan. without time, being already factored in. What to do is when you breakdown the study plan into objectives put in the time it took you to do the task not the time you allotted to do the task. You will find as you progress you will naturally get faster as your skills and understanding go from charmander to charizard. And reward yourself when you get to the end of a topic. This is all about you, at the end of the day if you dont take the time you actually need to invest in your ownself, you will have rushed through it and fucked it up better than where you were before.
Hope that helped buddy, be awesome and if you have any trouble, just give me a shout.
