I'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 t

I'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.