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Ask HN: How to shift focus at work to study+work rather than work only
I tend to focus on doing tasks. I feel like when I'm learning stuff at work (watching a video or reading a book - all tech) then internally no matter what my manager would say I feel like it's not what I need to do at work. Do you also have that feeling how can you shift the focus to this and feel great? PS it's not only the feeling it's also the attitude difficult to focus on this stuff while focusing at work tasks is much easier as it involves immediate action result satisfaction, more tests pass, more functionality, better performance, new design document, new wiki page, new refactor, new idea about design improved architecture all those have the trigger response satisfaction rather than just watching a video or reading.
It's like the context switching of to learning is just never in the mood at work (at home it is) if anyone has succeeded and has tips to be able to make this change would be happy to learn.
- CyberFonic 7y agoI have worked in small companies where we were given time to study to gain specific certifications. Other than that, as a professional it is focus on work at work and study to extend my knowledge in my own time at home. Unless you are at the early stages of your career, I don't see how you can justify learning during work time. Aren't you paid to complete your assigned tasks?
- gshdg 7y agoAre the things you’re learning applicable in your current job?
- tomerbd 7y agoYeah, I just have a problem changing focus at work from "work" mode to "study" mode, In work mode, the pace is fast and I get gratification, and interruptions are acceptable. In study mode I don't see any immediate results, and interruptions and noise are much more difficult, also I feel like in work mode I have all the surrounding ready for that, IDE, task manager, commits, design documents, meetings, everything is tuned for fast pace. But in study mode nothing is practically tuned for that. So only at home where I have larger bulks of time, in more rare cases am I interrupted from work than I can really focus and study. I really wondered if more people have this issue. and if anyone managed to resolve this.
- matt_the_bass 7y agoIf it’s applicable to your role at your company, then it’s just a question of does the learning topic apply to your current priorities. If yes, then totally justified. If _you_ don’t feel like it’s real work, try taking notes or writing a primer on the topic. Now it’s “legit” and potentially a new resource for your team.
- otras 7y agoI've found that repeated practice and building the habit was very helpful for longer term goals like learning. One thing I've done is explicitly blocked time to work on learning. For example, when I jumped in to learn some UX/Sketch work for a previous company (very small, no designated designers), I would block off an hour that would be specifically for that work. No email, no slack, no code review, just two 25-minute chunks of learning with a break in-between. I would also usually come in a little early and knock it out first thing in the morning, since a) that was the time when there were the fewest distractions and b) then I could check it off my TODO list and not have to worry about it for the rest of the day. More recently, at a larger company with more meetings, I've found that explicitly blocking time/space to work on something can be really helpful for heads-down learning. Side note: I've also found that having the goal of sharing with my team (via informal tech talks) is a tremendous way to learn and to stay diligent.