39 ms·

How to find time to learn after work (2017)

175 points by dhfs 3y ago

jossclimb 3y ago
Don't find the time to learn after work, learn during work (unless you work in a different industry, such as construction).
presentinmoment 3y ago
I prefer to be present in the moment. I'm slowly leaving my phone behind and just trying to be present. Actually experience reality and not get my brain busy all the time. Because of that I'd say, just don't try to be productive at all times. That "downtime" you're trying to cram another podcast into is actually necessary.
- emerongi 3y ago
  This is my most important lesson in the past few years. There is value in _not_ learning, building, doing all the time. I like to work and study, but doing either of it for more than 8hrs is not sustainable for me. I expect to be writing the modern-day equivalent of Fortran when I'm 60. All the young bucks will look down on me for not advancing in my career, but I think I'll be happy. That's all I need. Everyone has their own balance point. John Carmack can work 12hr days and improve at various subjects continually, so his balance point lies somewhere else. Don't try to be Carmack if you're not and you can still live a fulfilling life :).
  - presentinmoment 3y ago
    > I think I'll be happy. That's all I need My thoughts exactly. When I'm about to die, I suppose this is all that will matter.
  - Nitant 3y ago
    >Don't try to be Carmack if you're not and you can still live a fulfilling life :). Thanks, I needed this.
    - OnionBlender 3y ago
      You might find this interesting, from a guy that worked with John Carmack. http://bookofhook.blogspot.com/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity-pitfalls.html?m=1 http://bookofhook.blogspot.com/2013/03/smart-guy-productivit...
  - dbalatero 3y ago
    Carmack might burn out someday too. Or have a worse mental state privately than you might think from casual observation. You never know by looking.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > I like to work and study, but doing either of it for more than 8hrs is not sustainable for me. So, if you're working a proper full-time job, it means you're incapable of learning or working on anything other than your $dayjob for 5 days a week. I think this is the root for the "productivity drive" - you spend yourself out at work so you can survive, and then... there's the rest of your life, that you would also like to live, not just experience. For many (myself included) it's kind of a trap. Productivity here literally means autonomy - the things I do or build or learn after work are literally... my life.
- steve1977 3y ago
  I think that's an important bit here. It's like "optimizing" sleep with the meaning of getting as little as possible of it. No. Sleep is good. Optimizing sleep is getting the proper amount your brain needs.
- zogrodea 3y ago
  That's a nice username you have, and the advice you're giving seems good too.
- safety1st 3y ago
  Leaving your phone behind is really where it's at. Your parent is making this point about how when you go to the office, in addition to your commute, there's an extra 30 minutes of stuff like getting dressed and making coffee. OK - 30 minutes. This year, I went from an average of 4.5 hours a day of phone time to less than 2.5 (it's still dropping). Two more hours every day to do whatever I want! Show me any other "time hack" that saves 14+ hours per week. I think I'll get my phone time down to 60-90 minutes eventually (basically just time spent eating meals alone, plus a few essential app tasks). My days feel positively endless now. I finally read books again. 250 pages this weekend on a whim. You can squeeze a phone addiction or a commute into your day, but not both. Of course preferably you have neither...
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  Yeah there's a load of people, especiall in SF or on HN, that feel like they should be Doing Something Productive at all times. And it's companies that encourage this, e.g. old Google by offering on-site gyms, entertainment and food, or what a lot of companies everywhere do, offering after-hours "hackathons" with pizza. But your brain needs rest as well. Stop trying to keep up in the rat race, all the things you try to cram into your brain have a short half-life and will be forgotten or archived into the "things to half-remember and you'll need to look up anyway" anyway. I mean if you enjoy listening to podcasts while commuting, have at it, I won't judge / you're allowed to have and enjoy things. But if you feel like you HAVE to, it'll cause problems down the line. Don't feel guilty about "wasting time" either, if you enjoy watching TV, playing video games, or sleeping instead of doing a 5 AM run, have at it. Don't deny yourself too much.
  - eclipxe 3y ago
    Google still has on-site gyms, entertainment, food...haircuts, massages, etc. That hasn't changed.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  Ensuring that that my brain has downtime is proving very intersting. The amount of ideas and concepts I can work through with just 30 minutes of down time is frighting . A few days ago I need to drive and on the way out my brain just came up with a long list of solutions to various problems. On the way back I was listing to a podcast an noticed that I was switching between focusing on the podcast and my thoughts. As neither got full attention both became a bit of a waste of time.
- Zababa 3y ago
  I get your point, but being present in the subway or the bus is worthless for me. When walking it's different, especially if there's some nature and not too many people nearby.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>"For example, I’m commuting every day 2×45 minutes to my workplace and back home. I need 5 minutes to get to the train station with my bike, 10 minutes to wait for the (connecting) trains, 25 minutes actually on the trains, 5 minutes to get from the train to my working place" There's a big one right there. Time lost due to commute times are actually much longer than the door-to-door time. It's not just the 90 min that you're loosing with the commute, it's also the context switching before and after the commute: checking the weather outside to select the right clothing, getting dressed with the right attire that fits(unless you forgot to do the laundry), grooming and looking sharp before you go out (gotta brush off the dried dirt of the shoes from yesterday's rain), walking around your campus/building between your office and coffe-machine/water cooler to hydrate, setting up your laptop/desk to get in the zone, walking around looking for meeting rooms, all this adds up on top of those 90 min to more like 120 minutes or even more. That's 2h/day, or, if we assume 8h work and 8h sleep, that's 25% of your leisure time left lost for nothing, just to go to work and back. Just let that sink in. 25%! A quarter! One fourth! Even though in practice it's worse than that as 8h of work doesn't include the mandatory unpaid (in my corner of Europe) 30min-1h lunch break, so you're not left with much leisure time between work and sleep. And for me, 25 minutes on the train are not enough time for to get in the zone to actually study and learn something. By the time I get in the zone, I already need to start packing my stuff and get ready to board off the train. Trying to cram study into a short train ride brings me more stress than it's worth so I'd probably end up scrolling on HN/reddit in that short time on the train. With WFH I can save a huge amount of time by bypassing all these dead times that don't benefit me and nor do they benefit the company I work for. It's just time wasted that's unproductive to both parties. I can quickly jump into work after I wake up, and I can quickly jump off work when I'm done and dive directly into my hobbies. I wish companies would understand this and not see WFH as a tool or justification for slacking off, forcings everyone commute every day to waste everyone's time justifying some mystical "team bonding" that happens in the office that boosts everyone's productivity. /rant over
- laserlight 3y ago
  I'm happy to see more people taking into account overhead in commuting. It drives me crazy when people consider commute time as the time it takes in front of the wheel.
mkl 3y ago
For me, energy is more of a problem than time. I'm so exhausted in the evening it's hard to make progress with learning or technical projects.
warkanlock 3y ago
Interesting observation. I too often find myself in this oscillation between soaking up new knowledge and actually using it. This cycle between passive/active consumption is intriguing but might have its drawbacks IMHO. There are moments when I question if I should be buried in learning new topics instead of tinkering with what I already know. Learning is invaluable, no doubt—certainly better than mindlessly scrolling through TikTok. But it does beg one question: What's the point of incessant learning if we're not applying it in any meaningful way?
- presentinmoment 3y ago
  I'm switching to a more focused approach about this. I too love to soak up on new knowledge, regardless of it has practical use or not. I just love to learn about things in general. The problem is that I have limited capacity. So instead of subscribing to dozens of newsletters, listening all new episodes of podcasts, etc... I'm reaching for that knowledge when I need it. The flow I'm trying to implement is this: 1. Want to actually DO something 2. Look for information about that 3. (harder) Actually do it. Whereas before it was (still is): 1. Learn about ALL THINGS, maybe I'll need it 2. Don't actually need it, forget 99% of what I read/watched 3. Want to actually DO something 4. Look for information about that 5. (harder) Actually do it.
rozenmd 3y ago
My "hack" is to wake up earlier (easier said than done, but I picked up the habit while trying to get things done before the Australian heat kicked in), and work two hours on whatever interests me, before my work day starts. I've shipped several books, and currently run a SaaS product this way.
dxxvi 3y ago
You can't. So you learn while you are working (even when what you want to learn has nothing to do with your work). Of course, that can only be applied for office jobs.
rcardo11 3y ago
You can't really learn anything just consuming content, you have to put the work. This works for keeping up with news and trends tough.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  Agreed, this isn't learning, this is keeping up to date with things. Some of this might lead to stuff you want to learn, but that comes on top.
Decabytes 3y ago
I’ve found that if I really want to learn something, I just get up an hour early, makes some coffee/tea and get to it. It’s the only thing I can control with any certainty. The quiet time while everyone is asleep provides a distraction free environment. I also like giving my most productive/energetic time to my own projects/learning, as opposed to work, but that is just me. After work time is for dinner, family, and fun projects that I don’t need additional motivation for
- markus_zhang 3y ago
  Can relate. Recently I have grown some interests in building Neverwinter nights EE modules so I get up early to read DND source books and look at the scripts of the official campaigns. After work usually there is too much noise to get a large chunk of time. I do have 60-120 mins after my kid falls to sleep but I'm always in a gameplay only mentality during that time.
- xattt 3y ago
  Waking up early works but only if your kids don't have a variable time range, say 5:30 - 7:00, when they get up :)
  - DoingIsLearning 3y ago
    Haha First thing I thought when I read this. Waking up early to have some free focus time is what I _used_ to do. Now I can sometimes squeeze some late nights but not as productive cause I am half dead by then.
    - sanderjd 3y ago
      To some extent it works for me to take like an intuitive estimate for the rolling average of earliest kid wake up time over the last couple weeks, and then subtracting an hour and a half. But this doesn't work with infants or for like a month around both daylight savings time switch.
    - mrweasel 3y ago
TheFragenTaken 3y ago
Ugh. Posts like this are well meaning, but destructive. Why would you learn after work? Why do you strive towards something? Why is it important to learn, and constantly evolve? Are you really just doing it, because everyone else are, and you feel like you _have_ to? It's poisonous, because you end up blaming yourself because you are not living up to constantly changing external demands. It's okay to say no to what challenges your well-being. Otherwise you'd be at risk of losing your own autonomy. Accept your limitations, cherish them, and know you don't have to (or even can) change them. I'm not saying you should say no to everything, but not everything is necessary.
- wink 3y ago
  I didn't get that _at all_. If you are interested in stuff that is not related to your work (so learning on the job is out), what else would you do? To me this sounded like the author likes to read and learn about things, but these just happen to also be tech. So they found a way to make time and describe how. I don't see any holier than thou "this is how you must do it", just a simple "this works for me". But YMMV.
  - BaseballPhysics 3y ago
    Yeah except the piece started with: > My software developer colleagues often ask me where I do get all the time for reading all the tech books or articles, watching conference talks and listening to podcasts. They're not talking about learning about woodworking on the side, or learning about tech for fun. They specifically situated the piece in the world of work right at the start, going so far as to present themselves as some kind of mysterious marvel that their co-workers have tried to unravel. This is just another tech productivity hacking piece. Good ol' workaholic porn, in the same vein as "Wanna get hired? Start a dozen side projects!" or "Hack leetcode in your remaining waking hours for fun and profit, except without the fun!" It's a trope at this point, and an unhealthy one.
    - wiseowise 3y ago
      This is the same for all things in life. Want to have a better partner? Become a gym rat! Work on your personality! Want to be make more money in life? Learn more, grind more!
datadrivenangel 3y ago
Ideally learning should be built into work...
dlisboa 3y ago
Companies should devote actual work time for studying, because relying on personal time is not just unethical, but inefficient. It's way cheaper to pay people to study in-house than paying for outside training or bootcamps. Not everyone can (or want) to study this way, but devoted focused time give you far more benefits than one hour a day randomly whenever you can squeeze it. You can read most books (even technical ones) in under 8 hours, that's a single work day's worth. It's very likely your employees are wasting more than that over a two-week period on other things. That requires someone who's driven to learn, who would appreciate this time for what it is (it's not vacation), but would foster an environment where people were constantly trying to improve themselves and apply those things to the work (because that's the best way to learn). I study like crazy on my off time, mainly because I love learning, but it's definitely bordering on unpaid labor since I get all the best ideas after hours.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  > Companies should devote actual work time for studying I like to think that IT workers learn on the job all the time, although usually only relevant to the current task at hand. But, I've always browsed sites like HN during work hours (instead of going outside to smoke for example), possibly too much, and consider it to be self-study. It's resulted in me knowing a little about a lot of things, I don't know if it translates to actual skills or career advancement but at least it makes me feel smart. ish.
- zemvpferreira 3y ago
  I'm with you and if you employ good people this naturally happens when they're not pushed to the limit for a period of time. If your team is at 70% capacity for a month, a number of them will take the downtime to learn.
- BaseballPhysics 3y ago
  Totally agreed. This was my policy with my staff. I straight up told them they can and should take a couple hours a week (tried to start small to make it achievable) on personal development, whether that's reading books, taking courses, etc. I'd even try and brainstorm with them on ways to spend the time. Funny thing is, with one or two exceptions, few did it because they always felt something else was more urgent during the day...
derelicta 3y ago
Immo one should be paid to learn after work, because you are still learning FOR work. It's all unpaid training and Id gladly spent more time with friends than just "staying fit for the workplace"
thom 3y ago
Awful lot of lede buried in the “Read 3 books: 12 hours” here.
Transpire7487 3y ago
Get up at 6am. Get kids ready for school. Help my wife with any chores around the house for a bit. Start working. Lift on my lunch break in my home gym. Back to work. Kids come home. Feed them. Help with homework. Do something with them outside weather permitting. Put them to bed, read to/with them. Get lunches ready for tomorrow. Load the dishwasher. Load the laundry. My turn to walk the dog. Be mentally and physically drained. Hopefully this all gets down by 9:30 so I can get to bed before 10 and get enough sleep to start it all over again. Thank God I don’t commute. If you want to work after work - don’t have kids.
- rco8786 3y ago
  This is generally representative of my day also
- strikelaserclaw 3y ago
  The trick is to learn during your working hours. I generally subtract one hour each day from the time i do actual work for my company and put that time towards learning. You'd be surprised at how in the long run i'm actually doing much better than my peers. I think this is because fundamentally, there is a large percentage of work that is just muscle memory. I'm speaking as a senior software engineer but 30% of my work is design (this actually involves the most research and thought, i put 100% of my focus here), 50% is just coding (after many years on the job, if i design it correctly, it should mostly be muscle memory and coding from the design) and 20% meetings. That 50% of coding, that is where you can slack off and use that time for self improvement.
  - wonderwonder 3y ago
    This really is it. Most knowledge / white collar / software developers (not all) have downtime during the day. We are posting on HN during work hours. Its within the realm of reality to pare off an hour 3x a week to learn. Now I generally spend that hour doom scrolling, but if I was dedicated I could absolutely study, thats on me.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  Same. Though at least biking the kids to school in a cargo bike helps with exercise (but not as good as lifting). I understand now how people stagnate in midlife.
a-french-anon 3y ago
Easy one: have a miserable, recluse life without wife, children or future in a mad world. Then, you have all the time in world =)
wnolens 3y ago
Just take that hour FROM the work day. If it helps your work, it's work, and your conscience is clear to engage.
deliriumchn 3y ago
For me its not about finding time, its about finding will to commit and actually do something. Usually I feel burned out and tired after work and just want to relax and do the bare minimum (watch a movie/play some games etc), not sit and learn another tech thing
wahnfrieden 3y ago
Start by demanding time at work to learn. That’s one of the things Works Councils in Germany secure for workers from what I understand (different from unions)
technological 3y ago
Anyone with 2 kids or more can share there experience please
- CalRobert 3y ago
  Have multiple nannies? Boarding school? No idea, let me know if you figure it out.
- dkqmduems 3y ago
  How about learning with the kids?
BaseballPhysics 3y ago
Just gonna say: my god I hate productivity hacking culture. No, I am not going to optimize in additional professional learning in my off hours. I have a life. And I'm allowed to have idle time where I spend it just being instead of doing. My existence isn't to be maximally productive at all times, and this type of hyper optimization isn't going to make me wealthier or happier. If you're learning for work, learn during work hours. Anything else is just free labour. Edit: as a random ranty example, I recently discovered sites specifically for music that supposedly increases productivity. We can't even enjoy art anymore. It's gotta be art that makes us better little cogs.
- squarepizza 3y ago
  Startup(s) for company-mandated productivity-enhancing muzak incoming.
- supernikio2 3y ago
  I agree much of this fall under "working for free" but it doesn't have to. I for instance, work as a web developer and really want to get into making games, which is a huge undertaking in itself. It requires deep, productive time of learning and experimentation, and I often find myself drained after work to tackle such activities. However, I do feel like working through projects like this and coming out the other side with something tangible is a high like no other, and I despite how hard it might be, it's really invigorating and gratifying.
  - BaseballPhysics 3y ago
    Ah but that's a very different thing. You're treating tech as a hobby and engaging with it accordingly. This piece literally started with: > My software developer colleagues often ask me where I do get all the time for reading all the tech books or articles, watching conference talks and listening to podcasts. Immediately we, the reader, know this isn't about having fun in your spare time or learning and building purely for pleasure. It's all about achieving, about being that person that other people look to and think "wow, where do they find the time to be so productive??" If it were as you say, I'd have no issues with the piece at all.
kris_lujanovic 3y ago
Finally a topic I mastered. As very very late started and IT outsider until recently: Show up 15 - 30 minutes early to work and pick the most useful skill upgrade that will get you promoted or make your job easier / make you faster. This is bare minimum to get constant promotions. Stay 15 min after work and do quick analysis what did you do and how to do it better. During work always volunteer for documentation or training. Make sure you squeeze little research into both. And do proper detailed paperwork for both. Harass your boss for training, labs, conferences at every moment esp when someone compliments either you learning something new or your performance / execution. Study vacations. I have 25 days off and 5 of those are for intensive courses. somewhere interesting. This does not have to be directly related to job skills. You still have to be social and talk to people so language learning and cooking /dancing abroad is still beneficial. Once you train yourself how to do this try not to think and stress about it. Learning needs to be intense but with playful fun approach and mood.
rom1v 3y ago
> Read 3 books: 12 hours Definitely not technical books.
- cabbagesauce 3y ago
  I thought the same. I’m only 60 pages of a history book with tons of references to sources and it took me about 3 hours to go through that.
DrThunder 3y ago
It's not worth it to me. I learn on the job. Your job really should be willing to set aside time for you to learn things. It's not mentally healthy for me to continue work related things after hours. I need to exercise, rest, spend time with kid etc. Otherwise, major burnout will ensue.
- dbalatero 3y ago
  I don't think anyone would notice an output difference from someone learning on the job either.
irvinej00 3y ago
I usually do it after dinner. 30 minutes at minimum. They should have mentioned the book ultra learning, it has some major insights
jcutrell 3y ago
This sounds so exhausting. I’m all for listening to enriching content while doing dishes etc… I have a vested interest in this as a host of a podcast… but sometimes, you just need to hear the dishes clink, the train wheels rumble, or the sound of the air conditioner while you sit idle. You need space for your brain to expand and recover. Don’t fill every second, or you will regret it in short order from massive burnout, and in my opinion, increased levels of anxiety and a sense of never quite being “done” with anything.
manicennui 3y ago
I have plenty of time to learn after work, but I'm rarely in the mood until around midnight when I need to be getting to bed so I can start the grind cycle all over again.
tomerbd 3y ago
There is an alternative - give up, surrender, don't fight it. Don't learn, don't worry, be happy.
nerdchum 3y ago
I don't think you're supposed to. What's supposed to happen is you learn on the job but that rarely happens because unless you graduated from a top 10 school you're typically hired to do drudgery that exists due to poor tech management. So if you are actually a normal person in tech with things going on in your life you will inevitably fall behind.
boredemployee 3y ago
I have time, what I don't have is energy. I just can't do anything useful after work.
dahwolf 3y ago
The first hack is to be honest with yourself. Everybody is busy but at the same time people easily spend 3-5 hours on their phone, which used to be TV. Most people do have time. So be honest with yourself and look at that weekly usage report. It's OK if it looks bad, it looks bad for most of us. I'm just saying to acknowledge uncomfortable facts. Whether you have the energy to use that time differently is another matter. I can share that it will become ever harder as you age. It's a typical tech/knowledge work problem. Pay is good but the price is high. I have friends having many different professions and their skill set is largely stable over time. The idea that one must make daily effort in their free time to learn new things and do side projects is ludicrous to them. That's the nature of tech. Complain all you want but it's not going away. So stop complaining and be pragmatic. Don't learn random things, make a short list of things that count. That are marketable and in demand. Next, cut each topic up into tiny tasks. Make it achievable. Do your React "hello world" on day 1. Spend a few minutes on it in the evening and then reward yourself by going back to your Netflix. Read one deep article. Solve one bug. Do tiny stuff and do it all the time. Keep the train moving. The only thing that matters is that it's moving, don't worry about how much it moves on any given day.
whoiscroberts 3y ago
It helps me to set a goal that when I have learned the new skill I can then pursue. Right now I’m working my way though one of those 8 hour YouTube golang tutorials, after which I’m going to launch a blockchain into the Cosmos ecosystem. CosmosSDK is written in golang.
thallukrish 3y ago
Don't find time for something. Find something that takes your time.

175 points by dhfs 3y ago

Don't find the time to learn after work, learn during work (unless you work in a different industry, such as construction).

presentinmoment 3y ago

I prefer to be present in the moment. I'm slowly leaving my phone behind and just trying to be present. Actually experience reality and not get my brain busy all the time. Because of that I'd say, just don't try to be productive at all times. That "downtime" you're trying to cram another podcast into is actually necessary.

emerongi 3y ago
This is my most important lesson in the past few years. There is value in _not_ learning, building, doing all the time. I like to work and study, but doing either of it for more than 8hrs is not sustainable for me. I expect to be writing the modern-day equivalent of Fortran when I'm 60. All the young bucks will look down on me for not advancing in my career, but I think I'll be happy. That's all I need. Everyone has their own balance point. John Carmack can work 12hr days and improve at various subjects continually, so his balance point lies somewhere else. Don't try to be Carmack if you're not and you can still live a fulfilling life :).
- presentinmoment 3y ago
  > I think I'll be happy. That's all I need My thoughts exactly. When I'm about to die, I suppose this is all that will matter.
- Nitant 3y ago
  >Don't try to be Carmack if you're not and you can still live a fulfilling life :). Thanks, I needed this.
  - OnionBlender 3y ago
    You might find this interesting, from a guy that worked with John Carmack. http://bookofhook.blogspot.com/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity-pitfalls.html?m=1 http://bookofhook.blogspot.com/2013/03/smart-guy-productivit...
- dbalatero 3y ago
  Carmack might burn out someday too. Or have a worse mental state privately than you might think from casual observation. You never know by looking.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > I like to work and study, but doing either of it for more than 8hrs is not sustainable for me. So, if you're working a proper full-time job, it means you're incapable of learning or working on anything other than your $dayjob for 5 days a week. I think this is the root for the "productivity drive" - you spend yourself out at work so you can survive, and then... there's the rest of your life, that you would also like to live, not just experience. For many (myself included) it's kind of a trap. Productivity here literally means autonomy - the things I do or build or learn after work are literally... my life.
steve1977 3y ago
I think that's an important bit here. It's like "optimizing" sleep with the meaning of getting as little as possible of it. No. Sleep is good. Optimizing sleep is getting the proper amount your brain needs.
zogrodea 3y ago
That's a nice username you have, and the advice you're giving seems good too.
safety1st 3y ago
Leaving your phone behind is really where it's at. Your parent is making this point about how when you go to the office, in addition to your commute, there's an extra 30 minutes of stuff like getting dressed and making coffee. OK - 30 minutes. This year, I went from an average of 4.5 hours a day of phone time to less than 2.5 (it's still dropping). Two more hours every day to do whatever I want! Show me any other "time hack" that saves 14+ hours per week. I think I'll get my phone time down to 60-90 minutes eventually (basically just time spent eating meals alone, plus a few essential app tasks). My days feel positively endless now. I finally read books again. 250 pages this weekend on a whim. You can squeeze a phone addiction or a commute into your day, but not both. Of course preferably you have neither...
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Yeah there's a load of people, especiall in SF or on HN, that feel like they should be Doing Something Productive at all times. And it's companies that encourage this, e.g. old Google by offering on-site gyms, entertainment and food, or what a lot of companies everywhere do, offering after-hours "hackathons" with pizza. But your brain needs rest as well. Stop trying to keep up in the rat race, all the things you try to cram into your brain have a short half-life and will be forgotten or archived into the "things to half-remember and you'll need to look up anyway" anyway. I mean if you enjoy listening to podcasts while commuting, have at it, I won't judge / you're allowed to have and enjoy things. But if you feel like you HAVE to, it'll cause problems down the line. Don't feel guilty about "wasting time" either, if you enjoy watching TV, playing video games, or sleeping instead of doing a 5 AM run, have at it. Don't deny yourself too much.
- eclipxe 3y ago
  Google still has on-site gyms, entertainment, food...haircuts, massages, etc. That hasn't changed.
mrweasel 3y ago
Ensuring that that my brain has downtime is proving very intersting. The amount of ideas and concepts I can work through with just 30 minutes of down time is frighting . A few days ago I need to drive and on the way out my brain just came up with a long list of solutions to various problems. On the way back I was listing to a podcast an noticed that I was switching between focusing on the podcast and my thoughts. As neither got full attention both became a bit of a waste of time.
Zababa 3y ago
I get your point, but being present in the subway or the bus is worthless for me. When walking it's different, especially if there's some nature and not too many people nearby.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>"For example, I’m commuting every day 2×45 minutes to my workplace and back home. I need 5 minutes to get to the train station with my bike, 10 minutes to wait for the (connecting) trains, 25 minutes actually on the trains, 5 minutes to get from the train to my working place" There's a big one right there. Time lost due to commute times are actually much longer than the door-to-door time. It's not just the 90 min that you're loosing with the commute, it's also the context switching before and after the commute: checking the weather outside to select the right clothing, getting dressed with the right attire that fits(unless you forgot to do the laundry), grooming and looking sharp before you go out (gotta brush off the dried dirt of the shoes from yesterday's rain), walking around your campus/building between your office and coffe-machine/water cooler to hydrate, setting up your laptop/desk to get in the zone, walking around looking for meeting rooms, all this adds up on top of those 90 min to more like 120 minutes or even more. That's 2h/day, or, if we assume 8h work and 8h sleep, that's 25% of your leisure time left lost for nothing, just to go to work and back. Just let that sink in. 25%! A quarter! One fourth! Even though in practice it's worse than that as 8h of work doesn't include the mandatory unpaid (in my corner of Europe) 30min-1h lunch break, so you're not left with much leisure time between work and sleep. And for me, 25 minutes on the train are not enough time for to get in the zone to actually study and learn something. By the time I get in the zone, I already need to start packing my stuff and get ready to board off the train. Trying to cram study into a short train ride brings me more stress than it's worth so I'd probably end up scrolling on HN/reddit in that short time on the train. With WFH I can save a huge amount of time by bypassing all these dead times that don't benefit me and nor do they benefit the company I work for. It's just time wasted that's unproductive to both parties. I can quickly jump into work after I wake up, and I can quickly jump off work when I'm done and dive directly into my hobbies. I wish companies would understand this and not see WFH as a tool or justification for slacking off, forcings everyone commute every day to waste everyone's time justifying some mystical "team bonding" that happens in the office that boosts everyone's productivity. /rant over

laserlight 3y ago
I'm happy to see more people taking into account overhead in commuting. It drives me crazy when people consider commute time as the time it takes in front of the wheel.

mkl 3y ago

For me, energy is more of a problem than time. I'm so exhausted in the evening it's hard to make progress with learning or technical projects.

warkanlock 3y ago

Interesting observation. I too often find myself in this oscillation between soaking up new knowledge and actually using it. This cycle between passive/active consumption is intriguing but might have its drawbacks IMHO. There are moments when I question if I should be buried in learning new topics instead of tinkering with what I already know. Learning is invaluable, no doubt—certainly better than mindlessly scrolling through TikTok. But it does beg one question: What's the point of incessant learning if we're not applying it in any meaningful way?

presentinmoment 3y ago
I'm switching to a more focused approach about this. I too love to soak up on new knowledge, regardless of it has practical use or not. I just love to learn about things in general. The problem is that I have limited capacity. So instead of subscribing to dozens of newsletters, listening all new episodes of podcasts, etc... I'm reaching for that knowledge when I need it. The flow I'm trying to implement is this: 1. Want to actually DO something 2. Look for information about that 3. (harder) Actually do it. Whereas before it was (still is): 1. Learn about ALL THINGS, maybe I'll need it 2. Don't actually need it, forget 99% of what I read/watched 3. Want to actually DO something 4. Look for information about that 5. (harder) Actually do it.

rozenmd 3y ago

My "hack" is to wake up earlier (easier said than done, but I picked up the habit while trying to get things done before the Australian heat kicked in), and work two hours on whatever interests me, before my work day starts. I've shipped several books, and currently run a SaaS product this way.

dxxvi 3y ago

You can't. So you learn while you are working (even when what you want to learn has nothing to do with your work). Of course, that can only be applied for office jobs.

rcardo11 3y ago

You can't really learn anything just consuming content, you have to put the work. This works for keeping up with news and trends tough.

mrweasel 3y ago
Agreed, this isn't learning, this is keeping up to date with things. Some of this might lead to stuff you want to learn, but that comes on top.

Decabytes 3y ago

I’ve found that if I really want to learn something, I just get up an hour early, makes some coffee/tea and get to it. It’s the only thing I can control with any certainty. The quiet time while everyone is asleep provides a distraction free environment. I also like giving my most productive/energetic time to my own projects/learning, as opposed to work, but that is just me. After work time is for dinner, family, and fun projects that I don’t need additional motivation for

markus_zhang 3y ago
Can relate. Recently I have grown some interests in building Neverwinter nights EE modules so I get up early to read DND source books and look at the scripts of the official campaigns. After work usually there is too much noise to get a large chunk of time. I do have 60-120 mins after my kid falls to sleep but I'm always in a gameplay only mentality during that time.
xattt 3y ago
Waking up early works but only if your kids don't have a variable time range, say 5:30 - 7:00, when they get up :)
- DoingIsLearning 3y ago
  Haha First thing I thought when I read this. Waking up early to have some free focus time is what I _used_ to do. Now I can sometimes squeeze some late nights but not as productive cause I am half dead by then.
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    To some extent it works for me to take like an intuitive estimate for the rolling average of earliest kid wake up time over the last couple weeks, and then subtracting an hour and a half. But this doesn't work with infants or for like a month around both daylight savings time switch.
  - mrweasel 3y ago

TheFragenTaken 3y ago

Ugh. Posts like this are well meaning, but destructive. Why would you learn after work? Why do you strive towards something? Why is it important to learn, and constantly evolve? Are you really just doing it, because everyone else are, and you feel like you _have_ to? It's poisonous, because you end up blaming yourself because you are not living up to constantly changing external demands. It's okay to say no to what challenges your well-being. Otherwise you'd be at risk of losing your own autonomy. Accept your limitations, cherish them, and know you don't have to (or even can) change them. I'm not saying you should say no to everything, but not everything is necessary.

wink 3y ago
I didn't get that _at all_. If you are interested in stuff that is not related to your work (so learning on the job is out), what else would you do? To me this sounded like the author likes to read and learn about things, but these just happen to also be tech. So they found a way to make time and describe how. I don't see any holier than thou "this is how you must do it", just a simple "this works for me". But YMMV.
- BaseballPhysics 3y ago
  Yeah except the piece started with: > My software developer colleagues often ask me where I do get all the time for reading all the tech books or articles, watching conference talks and listening to podcasts. They're not talking about learning about woodworking on the side, or learning about tech for fun. They specifically situated the piece in the world of work right at the start, going so far as to present themselves as some kind of mysterious marvel that their co-workers have tried to unravel. This is just another tech productivity hacking piece. Good ol' workaholic porn, in the same vein as "Wanna get hired? Start a dozen side projects!" or "Hack leetcode in your remaining waking hours for fun and profit, except without the fun!" It's a trope at this point, and an unhealthy one.
  - wiseowise 3y ago
    This is the same for all things in life. Want to have a better partner? Become a gym rat! Work on your personality! Want to be make more money in life? Learn more, grind more!

datadrivenangel 3y ago

Ideally learning should be built into work...

dlisboa 3y ago

Companies should devote actual work time for studying, because relying on personal time is not just unethical, but inefficient. It's way cheaper to pay people to study in-house than paying for outside training or bootcamps. Not everyone can (or want) to study this way, but devoted focused time give you far more benefits than one hour a day randomly whenever you can squeeze it. You can read most books (even technical ones) in under 8 hours, that's a single work day's worth. It's very likely your employees are wasting more than that over a two-week period on other things. That requires someone who's driven to learn, who would appreciate this time for what it is (it's not vacation), but would foster an environment where people were constantly trying to improve themselves and apply those things to the work (because that's the best way to learn). I study like crazy on my off time, mainly because I love learning, but it's definitely bordering on unpaid labor since I get all the best ideas after hours.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
> Companies should devote actual work time for studying I like to think that IT workers learn on the job all the time, although usually only relevant to the current task at hand. But, I've always browsed sites like HN during work hours (instead of going outside to smoke for example), possibly too much, and consider it to be self-study. It's resulted in me knowing a little about a lot of things, I don't know if it translates to actual skills or career advancement but at least it makes me feel smart. ish.
zemvpferreira 3y ago
I'm with you and if you employ good people this naturally happens when they're not pushed to the limit for a period of time. If your team is at 70% capacity for a month, a number of them will take the downtime to learn.
BaseballPhysics 3y ago
Totally agreed. This was my policy with my staff. I straight up told them they can and should take a couple hours a week (tried to start small to make it achievable) on personal development, whether that's reading books, taking courses, etc. I'd even try and brainstorm with them on ways to spend the time. Funny thing is, with one or two exceptions, few did it because they always felt something else was more urgent during the day...

derelicta 3y ago

Immo one should be paid to learn after work, because you are still learning FOR work. It's all unpaid training and Id gladly spent more time with friends than just "staying fit for the workplace"

thom 3y ago

Awful lot of lede buried in the “Read 3 books: 12 hours” here.

Transpire7487 3y ago

Get up at 6am. Get kids ready for school. Help my wife with any chores around the house for a bit. Start working. Lift on my lunch break in my home gym. Back to work. Kids come home. Feed them. Help with homework. Do something with them outside weather permitting. Put them to bed, read to/with them. Get lunches ready for tomorrow. Load the dishwasher. Load the laundry. My turn to walk the dog. Be mentally and physically drained. Hopefully this all gets down by 9:30 so I can get to bed before 10 and get enough sleep to start it all over again. Thank God I don’t commute. If you want to work after work - don’t have kids.

rco8786 3y ago
This is generally representative of my day also
strikelaserclaw 3y ago
The trick is to learn during your working hours. I generally subtract one hour each day from the time i do actual work for my company and put that time towards learning. You'd be surprised at how in the long run i'm actually doing much better than my peers. I think this is because fundamentally, there is a large percentage of work that is just muscle memory. I'm speaking as a senior software engineer but 30% of my work is design (this actually involves the most research and thought, i put 100% of my focus here), 50% is just coding (after many years on the job, if i design it correctly, it should mostly be muscle memory and coding from the design) and 20% meetings. That 50% of coding, that is where you can slack off and use that time for self improvement.
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  This really is it. Most knowledge / white collar / software developers (not all) have downtime during the day. We are posting on HN during work hours. Its within the realm of reality to pare off an hour 3x a week to learn. Now I generally spend that hour doom scrolling, but if I was dedicated I could absolutely study, thats on me.
CalRobert 3y ago
Same. Though at least biking the kids to school in a cargo bike helps with exercise (but not as good as lifting). I understand now how people stagnate in midlife.

a-french-anon 3y ago

Easy one: have a miserable, recluse life without wife, children or future in a mad world. Then, you have all the time in world =)

wnolens 3y ago

Just take that hour FROM the work day. If it helps your work, it's work, and your conscience is clear to engage.

deliriumchn 3y ago

For me its not about finding time, its about finding will to commit and actually do something. Usually I feel burned out and tired after work and just want to relax and do the bare minimum (watch a movie/play some games etc), not sit and learn another tech thing

wahnfrieden 3y ago

Start by demanding time at work to learn. That’s one of the things Works Councils in Germany secure for workers from what I understand (different from unions)

technological 3y ago

Anyone with 2 kids or more can share there experience please

CalRobert 3y ago
Have multiple nannies? Boarding school? No idea, let me know if you figure it out.
dkqmduems 3y ago
How about learning with the kids?

BaseballPhysics 3y ago

Just gonna say: my god I hate productivity hacking culture. No, I am not going to optimize in additional professional learning in my off hours. I have a life. And I'm allowed to have idle time where I spend it just being instead of doing. My existence isn't to be maximally productive at all times, and this type of hyper optimization isn't going to make me wealthier or happier. If you're learning for work, learn during work hours. Anything else is just free labour. Edit: as a random ranty example, I recently discovered sites specifically for music that supposedly increases productivity. We can't even enjoy art anymore. It's gotta be art that makes us better little cogs.

squarepizza 3y ago
Startup(s) for company-mandated productivity-enhancing muzak incoming.
supernikio2 3y ago
I agree much of this fall under "working for free" but it doesn't have to. I for instance, work as a web developer and really want to get into making games, which is a huge undertaking in itself. It requires deep, productive time of learning and experimentation, and I often find myself drained after work to tackle such activities. However, I do feel like working through projects like this and coming out the other side with something tangible is a high like no other, and I despite how hard it might be, it's really invigorating and gratifying.
- BaseballPhysics 3y ago
  Ah but that's a very different thing. You're treating tech as a hobby and engaging with it accordingly. This piece literally started with: > My software developer colleagues often ask me where I do get all the time for reading all the tech books or articles, watching conference talks and listening to podcasts. Immediately we, the reader, know this isn't about having fun in your spare time or learning and building purely for pleasure. It's all about achieving, about being that person that other people look to and think "wow, where do they find the time to be so productive??" If it were as you say, I'd have no issues with the piece at all.

kris_lujanovic 3y ago

Finally a topic I mastered. As very very late started and IT outsider until recently: Show up 15 - 30 minutes early to work and pick the most useful skill upgrade that will get you promoted or make your job easier / make you faster. This is bare minimum to get constant promotions. Stay 15 min after work and do quick analysis what did you do and how to do it better. During work always volunteer for documentation or training. Make sure you squeeze little research into both. And do proper detailed paperwork for both. Harass your boss for training, labs, conferences at every moment esp when someone compliments either you learning something new or your performance / execution. Study vacations. I have 25 days off and 5 of those are for intensive courses. somewhere interesting. This does not have to be directly related to job skills. You still have to be social and talk to people so language learning and cooking /dancing abroad is still beneficial. Once you train yourself how to do this try not to think and stress about it. Learning needs to be intense but with playful fun approach and mood.

rom1v 3y ago

> Read 3 books: 12 hours Definitely not technical books.

cabbagesauce 3y ago
I thought the same. I’m only 60 pages of a history book with tons of references to sources and it took me about 3 hours to go through that.

DrThunder 3y ago

It's not worth it to me. I learn on the job. Your job really should be willing to set aside time for you to learn things. It's not mentally healthy for me to continue work related things after hours. I need to exercise, rest, spend time with kid etc. Otherwise, major burnout will ensue.

dbalatero 3y ago
I don't think anyone would notice an output difference from someone learning on the job either.

irvinej00 3y ago

I usually do it after dinner. 30 minutes at minimum. They should have mentioned the book ultra learning, it has some major insights

jcutrell 3y ago

This sounds so exhausting. I’m all for listening to enriching content while doing dishes etc… I have a vested interest in this as a host of a podcast… but sometimes, you just need to hear the dishes clink, the train wheels rumble, or the sound of the air conditioner while you sit idle. You need space for your brain to expand and recover. Don’t fill every second, or you will regret it in short order from massive burnout, and in my opinion, increased levels of anxiety and a sense of never quite being “done” with anything.

manicennui 3y ago

I have plenty of time to learn after work, but I'm rarely in the mood until around midnight when I need to be getting to bed so I can start the grind cycle all over again.

tomerbd 3y ago

There is an alternative - give up, surrender, don't fight it. Don't learn, don't worry, be happy.

nerdchum 3y ago

I don't think you're supposed to. What's supposed to happen is you learn on the job but that rarely happens because unless you graduated from a top 10 school you're typically hired to do drudgery that exists due to poor tech management. So if you are actually a normal person in tech with things going on in your life you will inevitably fall behind.

boredemployee 3y ago

I have time, what I don't have is energy. I just can't do anything useful after work.

dahwolf 3y ago

The first hack is to be honest with yourself. Everybody is busy but at the same time people easily spend 3-5 hours on their phone, which used to be TV. Most people do have time. So be honest with yourself and look at that weekly usage report. It's OK if it looks bad, it looks bad for most of us. I'm just saying to acknowledge uncomfortable facts. Whether you have the energy to use that time differently is another matter. I can share that it will become ever harder as you age. It's a typical tech/knowledge work problem. Pay is good but the price is high. I have friends having many different professions and their skill set is largely stable over time. The idea that one must make daily effort in their free time to learn new things and do side projects is ludicrous to them. That's the nature of tech. Complain all you want but it's not going away. So stop complaining and be pragmatic. Don't learn random things, make a short list of things that count. That are marketable and in demand. Next, cut each topic up into tiny tasks. Make it achievable. Do your React "hello world" on day 1. Spend a few minutes on it in the evening and then reward yourself by going back to your Netflix. Read one deep article. Solve one bug. Do tiny stuff and do it all the time. Keep the train moving. The only thing that matters is that it's moving, don't worry about how much it moves on any given day.

whoiscroberts 3y ago

It helps me to set a goal that when I have learned the new skill I can then pursue. Right now I’m working my way though one of those 8 hour YouTube golang tutorials, after which I’m going to launch a blockchain into the Cosmos ecosystem. CosmosSDK is written in golang.

thallukrish 3y ago

Don't find time for something. Find something that takes your time.