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 peo

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.