One of our members asked me this question:
I have started to pick up some freelance work alongside my main job. Now I spend almost the whole day working. I’m starting to feel like I’m missing out on my learning, although doing freelance work has opened up whole new on-the-job learning opportunities. But, I still want to make time to learn additional skills like understanding architecture, designing programs, and so on.
In your opinion, what is a healthy balance for learning and working?
I definitely understand this pressure – my time is a mix of consulting, writing for the website, creating courses, raising kids, cooking for the family, gardening, and trying to squeeze in learning time. Whenever things get particularly busy with clients or the website, seemingly extraneous activities like learning are the first thing to drop by the wayside.
Is This Actually a Problem?
First, I want to note that I don’t think a temporary suspension of learning is a problem. While we should always be prioritizing our tasks and executing on the current highest priority item, we need to pay particular attention to this prioritize-and-execute strategy when we feel overwhelmed. Focus on the highest priority task, knock it out, and then move on to the next. Extraneous items, which can include learning, can and should fall by the wayside.
However, I do want to note that this kind of workload isn’t really sustainable over long periods of time. We can draw a parallel to the concept of "periodization" in the fitness world, where we drop from a period of intense workouts into a "recovery" period, which allows our muscles and nervous system to recover appropriately. This means that you need to schedule heavier workloads in cycles, making sure to periodically reduce your load (below the typical 40 hours a week!) to recover. If you don’t do this, you will will burn yourself out or become sick. If you choose to cycle your workload in this manner, scheduling learning activities for your "recovery" periods may be the ideal solution, since it is generally quite fun and low stress.
What’s the Proper Balance?
Our member’s question was actually about a healthy balance for learning and working. I keep a sticky note on my monitor that says "20% learning, 80% action."
This reminder is important to me, because I have a tendency to be an "over-learner" who spends time learning things just for the sake of learning. I doubt that I’m alone in this – it seems to be a general tendency among the knowledge workers that I know.
The problem is that “excessive learning” often serves as a distraction, a justification for procrastination, or a cover for the fear you feel when you need to start a project or finally release it for the public to see. There is an infinite amount of information in the universe, but humans are limited and can only possess a small drop in this vast ocean of information. You could spend your whole life learning – but to what end? And are you sure that what you’re learning is contributing a positive return on investment to your life?
We are creatures of action, and in my view, learning should be used to make that action more effective and to reduce the unwanted side effects of our actions. Programming and engineering are fundamentally creative acts. We cannot think or learn our creations into existence. We actually need to take the time build them.
As Dr. Feynman says, there’s a difference between knowing a thing and understanding it. Often, when we’re spending a disproportionate amount of time learning (without actively applying the knowledge), we’re just "learning the names of things" without actually understanding those things.
We need to actively apply what we’ve learned to understand its potential value and to cement the lessons in our minds. We need to reflect on new lessons and techniques in order to find ways to anchor them to what we already know. We need to identify holes in our understanding and work to fill in those holes. We need to evolve beyond what we’ve learned, contributing new ideas and discoveries to the existing body of knowledge. We cannot do any of this without action!
In my opinion, the ultimate form of knowledge for a human is embodied knowledge – knowledge that is so deeply rooted in your being that you can rely on your intuition, muscle memory, and automatic reactions to generate a suitable course of action without requiring significant thought or study. We cannot develop embodied knowledge through "book learning" alone. We need deliberate practice and repetition to achieve this goal.
How to Fit in Learning Time with a Busy Schedule?
Beyond an 80/20 split, there are other considerations to keep in mind when we think about fitting continuing education into our schedule.
One important aspect to consider is the spacing effect and lag effect. Humans learn much better when learning is spread out over time, and we remember things better when we space reviews over longer periods of time instead of shorter periods of time. You will learn more effectively if you set aside 30 minutes per workday instead of 2.5 hours on a Friday afternoon.
We are also creatures of habit. Routines provide structure and consistency to our lives. We are much more likely to stick to a habit that we perform on the same day, at the same time each day, and under the same conditions. This is another reason to set aside a smaller amount of time on a daily basis.
We need to take breaks in order to remain effective. You need to be sure that you are getting up to stretch, walk around, get your blood flowing, and allow your mind to rest. I also strongly recommend taking a break whenever you’re stumped by a tricky problem. I like to spend my breaks walking, doing a quick set of kettlebell swings, or playing some music. You might choose to squeeze in some reading, a podcast, or an audiobook (the latter two being especially suitable for a walk!). Ultimately, the goal is to relax your mind and distract yourself from the problem at hand. However you choose to do that is acceptable.
Note: I take a 1 minute break every 20 minutes, and a 15 minute break every two hours. A program on my computer enforces this for me by locking out my screen. You might also choose to use the popular Pomodoro technique. In this case you would work for 25 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. Every four intervals, you would take a longer 15-30 minute break.
What happens when it becomes crunch time, and you need to put in the extra effort to complete the project on time or manage an unexpectedly high workload? In these situations, the larger chunks of down time are likely to be sacrificed to squeeze in more work. You can justify keeping smaller, regular blocks of break time in the schedule, especially if you view that block of time as an essential rest.
Some people use a calendar to govern their lives. In this case, carve out time on your calendar for learning and mark yourself as "busy". Ideally, you will schedule this time when you are not likely to give it up for things such as important meetings.
If you work on a team, you could also create a weekly reading club or “lunch-and-learn” sessions. By scheduling continuous education as a group, you build in accountability. Teaching others is also a way to make sure you understand the concepts that you’re teaching. Making sure you understand something well enough to simplify it and explain it to others also helps you cement the knowledge in your mind even further. For the best results, we recommend having a different team member present a paper or topic each week or month (depending on the frequency). We all have our own interests, and cross-pollination can be extremely effective in a team environment.
Note: Enterprising employees may also be able to convince their managers to cater a team meal if you schedule the session during lunch time!
The final strategy I will share is scheduling a “learning” sprint. This works especially well if you’re coming off of a heavy workload and need a mental reset. You can set aside 1–2 weeks to focus on deeply studying a given topic, and then you return to your work well-rested and with new ideas. Often, I will collect interesting books, articles, and lectures for a given topic ahead of time, only scheduling a learning sprint when I reach critical mass in terms of both material and interest/need. Ideally, you will be able to immediately start putting into practice whatever it is you are learning about (otherwise, why are you dedicating so much time to learning it?).
If you find yourself using learning as a form of procrastination, sprints can help you transform that habit. Instead of getting sucked into a learning wormhole, save the articles or books in a digital notebook until you’re able to set aside time to do a deep dive into the subject.
Do You Really Not Have Time?
I want to close this article with a question: is it actually true that you don’t have time to learn?
If you are raising a family, caring for a sick or elderly family member, or working multiple jobs, squeezing in time for learning might not make the cut. However, if none of those describe your situation, there’s an extremely high probability that you really do have time.
Imagine I was looking over your shoulder while you went about your day. How often am I going to see you get distracted, open up a news site, browse social media? Am I going to see you binge watching TV shows or playing video games? This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be checking in on people, relaxing, or having fun – but are these activities really so much more important than the areas you claim you don’t have time for?
My approach to making everything fit in the schedule involves eliminating distractions and working when I am most effective. But don’t just take it from me. In this video, Jocko Willink describes ways we can squeeze in reading and learning into our busy lives:
So, before you say that you have no time for learning (or anything else that’s important to you), work through this question: What time wasters can you eliminate to make room for the things that are truly important to you?
Further Reading
- How I Schedule my Day as a Consultant
- My Favorite Debugging Tip: Get Up and Take a Walk
- Wikipedia: Spacing Effect
- Richard Feynman – Names Don’t Constitute Knowledge (video)
- Simple Way To Find Time for Things You Want – Jocko Willink and Echo Charles (video)
- ExRx: Periodization
- Scott Young: Ultralearning