QA Friday 2016-Apr-15

After working 8 hours, how can I learn to program in the evening? The most important point and the one thing you should remember above all the other suggestions is the power of consistent progress. It doesn’t matter how much. You just have to be steady. Let’s start with how much time you really have, 24 hours each weekday plus the entire weekend. Or maybe you work on the weekends. You should have some days off. A regular 40 hour job will give you plenty of time. Here’s how: 8 hours per day working. 1 hour for lunch. Another hour for getting ready for work in the morning. You should be able to get at least a bowl of cereal in that time. 1 hour for dinner and catching up on the nightly news. An hour for stopping by the store on your way home to pick up supplies. Try to do things like this on the weekend but I know there will be things you have to do, either a trip to the bank, getting gas, or picking up the kids. An hour for travel time. This assumes you drive about a half hour each way. Another hour for exercise and bathing. A full 8 hours of sleep. This is important. Don’t try to substitute energy drinks or stay awake with coffee. You need your sleep. A lot of people think sleep is for tired muscles and while it can help with that, sleep is mainly for your mind. This is the time when your mind is organizing and making sense of the day. Our mind goes through several cycles each night and uninterrupted sleep is critical to completing these cycles. Don’t set your alarm clock an hour early and then snooze 10 times thinking it’ll help you wake up gradually. All you end up doing is wasting that hour and you’ll probably feel even more tired. Okay, how much is left? Well, all of that comes to 22 hours. This is where most of us think we don’t have any time. After all, what can you really hope to accomplish in just 2 hours? Is it really worth it? Maybe you should just watch a couple TV shows and call it a day. If you do this, that’s when the feeling of hopelessness and being trapped take over. Your days can become depressing and you look forward to the weekend to relax, chill out, or maybe tackle that home repair or mow the yard. Even your weekends become full and busy and when you think about the coming work week, it can be hard to devote time to learning. Listen to the episode, or read the full transcript below, to learn some more tips about how to manage that last bit of remaining time each week. Transcript Okay on to the question this week. This is another question that I found online. It’s definitely hard to learn something after a long day and it doesn’t matter what your job is. I’ll give you some suggestions that’ll hopefully make it easier for you. I’ve mentioned this before and will keep bringing it up. The most important point and the one thing you should remember above all the other suggestions is the power of consistent progress. It doesn’t matter how much. You just have to be steady. Let’s start with how much time you really have, 24 hours each weekday plus the entire weekend. Or maybe you work on the weekends. You should have some days off. You know the best schedule I ever had was in my first full-time job after college. I worked 12 hour shifts from 7 am to 7 pm. If you have a schedule like this, then, yeah, there will be less time. But you should be able to make up for it on another day. For me, I worked 3 days then had 3 days off. Then I worked 4 days and had 4 days off. That meant every weekend was either a 3 or 4 day weekend. If you have a schedule like this, you’re in a great position to learn programming. Even a regular 40 hour job will give you plenty of time. Here’s how. ◦ 8 hours per day working. ◦ 1 hour for lunch. ◦ Another hour for getting ready for work in the morning. You should be able to get at least a bowl of cereal in that time. ◦ 1 hour for dinner and catching up on the nightly news. ◦ An hour