How many hours a day should you spend learning code?
‘Eager beavers’ everywhere! Whether it be the gym, sweet/salty snacks, continuing education, or becoming the best damn Fortnite player in history, most of us tend to go ‘hard and fast’: that is to say we try to absorb as much as we can in as little time as we can. The result: We end up ‘burning out’ real bad and probably never want to return to the thing that hurt us so bad…at least for awhile. We’ve all been there, we want to do, learn, or be something so bad that we end of ‘OD’ing’ (over-dosing) on it. And this is especially true with learning; remember the all night ‘cram’ sessions before big exams when you were younger? Add to that the fact that you’re learning a new skill like coding, which sometimes is not as intuitive as you’re used to things being, and you could ‘burn out’ before your first session is done!
So how many hours a day should you spend learning to code? “If you’re first starting out, you should maybe limit it to 30-45 minutes a day. Whenever you start getting into code for the first time, you’re literally going to be re-wiring your brain physically …you’re going to be learning to think and process information in a totally different way.”
What’s really cool about this is learning in different ways is that it makes your brain ‘stronger’. Much like physically training with different exercises, disciplines, and sports makes your body stronger and more adaptable to different stresses and pressures, learning/thinking and reasoning in different ways re-wires the brain to be ‘fit’ (for lack of a better word) and more adaptable to different situations. And I don’t know about you guys, but as I get older and more set in my ways, the need for an agile mind is more and more necessary.
Always leave’em wanting more It’s an old vaudevillian/performer’s adage. It means don’t go overboard when entertaining/performing. Always leave your audience wanting more so they will return, buy more tickets and (more importantly), they’ll want to be there. Very apt and very applicable to learning, “you should leave your daily learning session (encoding) wanting more, not exhausted. You wanna leave it and go, ‘this is cool’ …you want to create an association that’s positive, that’s fun with coding…”.
The VLOG really goes into more detail about this, while adding a psychological angle to it …and what would a good VLOG be without a RUBY slam (there’s more than one!), BOOM! Also, check out our courses for coding, freelancing or entrepreneurship <links below>. They have been built from the ground up with this very principle in mind! Remember when you’re starting out be kind to yourself, take it slow and easy, and have fun so you’ll want to come back. Whether it’s learning a new skill or anything else in life, it’s just a good ‘code’ to have… -Enjoy!
Should you continue to learn Python, even if Python jobs in the area are more or less in data sciences or other areas you’re not interested in?
So, what if you’re learning a language; Python in this case and you start looking around at possible jobs and realize that all or most of the jobs for Python are ones that you have no particular interest in? Do you stop learning and move onto something else?
“I think it’s a good idea to learn multiple languages, …every time I learned a new language my skills as a developer went <sound of a rocket taking off>, rocket[ed] right up. All these modern languages…they all share so many of the same qualities, but they look at things from a different point of view.” Think of it in terms of hanging out with different friends, even though hanging out with different friends has a lot of similarities: having a drink, talking, laughing, etc, the experience will always be different, ya know?
We’ve said it here before but there is no such thing as a wasted language, because each language learned is like a tool in your tool box, there will be an occasion to use it. Now that being said there are some obscure tools out there and if you’re getting into this business to make money, you’re probably better off learning to use the most popular tools. But, hey, you’re an adult and as you become more experienced in this field, you’ll figure out what’s worth your time…
Check out the VLOG, there’s a lot of great info, including some commentary on Swift and JavaScript. -Enjoy!
Whether you’re learning CSS or anything in general: give your mind time to assimilate the lessons.
Learning anything can be hard, but learning CSS (which is not a particularly intuitive system) can be just plain daunting. What do you do when you feel like your brain is getting ‘fried’? Take a break, man!
“Learning something new is very much like exercising: lifting weights/working out. Anybody who does regular exercise knows that the rest period in exercising is just as important as the exercising itself.” For example, let’s say you do some heavy weight-lifting and the next day you’re sore…should you go on that same day and lift some more? Contrary to popular ‘bro’ opinion…NO, you should take that day for your body to rest and relax, so that when you go back to lifting, you’re refreshed and ready.
“The exact same thing applies when you’re learning CSS, …etc. You are literally tasking your brain in a physical way to learn, to acquire, to assimilate new knowledge. And because of that it’s going to reach a certain point where it needs a time to process this and assimilate it properly, so that means that you need to rest; so when you come to a point when you just can’t, it can’t sink in anymore: where the information is just becoming more difficult -your brain seems to be resisting the acquisition of new information (it’s becoming strained!) – at that moment, it’s your brain saying, ‘okay, we’ve trained enough, it’s time to take a break to assimilate.”
Check out the VLOG for a very understanding and meaningful deep dive into this subject. Don’t beat yourself up over how long it’s taking to learn either. That will not matter once you’ve attained your goal, and no one out there in the real world cares how long it took for you to learn something – they just want to take advantage of your knowledge. <Shameless Promo> Our courses, whether it’s the freelancing course or the web stack, or any of them are designed in a way that takes advantage of the fact that you’re learning at your own pace. So no worries, take your time, do it right and be good to yourself. -Enjoy!
Full transparency: We have a book and we do videos, so we know what we’re talking about having been on both sides of the fence… And of course, our answer is (unsurprisingly) both-ish; kinda like a two pronged attack…
Books are great for referencing material, for example, you need to look something up, you find the page and boom: there it is! As opposed to sometimes having to watch a 15-20 minute video that has great material but it’s buried deep in the vid. You might have to start jumping around on the time bar to find it or it won’t be covered til minute 8 or the 15 minutes, which can be pretty frustrating when time is a factor.
Video on the other hand is great for “…engaging with the material you just learned.” If you’ve been following us for awhile, you know we have online courses that are tailor-made to helping you learn and then put to practice (through questions, exercises, etc.) the things you just learned. While with a book the learning tends to be more passive and in the case of retention, it’s hard to put it down sometimes and start practicing what you just read…
Now we’re not knocking anyone’s learning style, if you can retain and use information you’ve just read in a book, that’s great! We’re just trying to lay out what we think is the best of both worlds and will yield the best results vs. effort. Check out the vid where we go into MAJOR detail. And check out our links at the bottom to our kickass courses: it’s super effective! Enjoy!
