📅 The Most Efficient Self-Taught Learning is Routine

I love to learn, but I hate finding time for it.

We all only have 24 hours in a day. Between work, sleep, and everything else, you're probably juggling a lot already! The challenge for anyone doing self-taught learning is finding out how much time you can set aside consistently — fitting it into your regular routine, the cadence of your daily life.

Taking two hours to dive into something every other Saturday is a great supplement to your regular cadence. But if that's all you can do, you're gonna spend a good chunk of each time block just trying to remember where you left off.

If you can set aside even a half hour every weekday, or even just three days a week, you will feel the progress. And any big blocks of time you can snag will be infinitely more productive!

Fair warning that, best case, you'll be taking this time from your solo free time. Yes, that still sucks. But it's still better than depriving yourself of sleep, or neglecting your relationships.

It's common for people trying to learn new skills to be drained by the time they get time for it. I found a way around this in my schedule by doing it first thing in the morning, before I hop into any other work. This works for me because I'm already awake a couple hours before my job typically starts.

Everyone's schedule is different. As long as you're making the time and protecting it wherever it lands on your schedule, you're moving forward along your path. It doesn't have to be a huge long session each time, and it doesn't even have to be every day. It just needs to be consistent!