At different points in my post-college life, I’ve carved out time to learn new technical skills, with mixed results.
In addition to a general thirst to expand my skillset, ever since the dot-com Bubble burst, the importance of both breadth and depth of skills has driven me to scrape a few hours out of my days and nights for self-teaching.
The same problems always arise with self-teaching though. First, where to begin and then, how to keep newly learned skills sharp with a project.
The Internet has greatly improved the ease of self-teaching. You can get started without physical books and host a project on Amazon for pennies. And lately, the rise of app stores offers you a place to sell your wares, if your projects become primetime-ready. So, your tinkering can quickly turn into a side project.
There are obvious problems though. Family and work take up much of the day, so where do you find these extra hours?
Or maybe you don’t want to spend your hobby time in front of the same screen you spend your work time. I can relate to that.
So, do you learn on your own? Any strategies you find successful? Do you focus on skills that have no relation to your work life, or do you try to broaden work-applicable skills? Do you find fun projects to keep you sane or even have the desire to learn new skills anymore?
Interesting subject matter. Find the comments and share your thoughts.
When I was younger, with more energy–and crucially, more time–sure, I’d explore and learn new things. Or try to. Anything: programming, another language, new hobbies. As I got older the uptake seemed harder so I turned to groups, classes, communities, and so on. Seems easier.
Finding the time is difficult. You can only exchange sleep for hobby time for so long until the diminishing returns get you.
Feels like 20 questions or something, maybe we should start a blog meme with this one. 😛
So, do you learn on your own?
Yes
Any strategies you find successful?
Start by playing. Manuals mostly suck. You’ll be bored before you start.
Do you focus on skills that have no relation to your work life, or do you try to broaden work-applicable skills?
Mostly work-applicable these days.
Do you find fun projects to keep you sane or even have the desire to learn new skills anymore?
Projects, not so much. It would probably help keep me focused though. Pretty much whatever is in front of me.
Definitely want to keep up, but I’m not bleeding edge like some of your friends (wish I were though).
You’re not required to answer all or any of them, but thanks. It seems like in our business you have to learn on your own a little bc you have to keep up with new technology and trends. Or at least that should help you do a better job.
Now that I run my own business (since June ’11) I try to see learning not as something i do in my “spare time” but something that’s essential to my future success. So i try to frame learning initiatives as specific projects with a start / end date, e.g. reading a particular book. This allows me to spend time on it even during “normal working hours” without me feeling guilty about not typing anything on a key board for a while 😉
I didn’t know you’d left Oracle, congrats on the new venture. I like the idea of making learning part of the daily work routine, and when I have the time, I’ll do that by extending the work day. I have high hopes of making a slot for ongoing learning every day, but we’ll see.