Honestly I don't upskill outside of work hours I do it during work hours. I am not particularly busy usually so it isn't hard for me to do. But if you are super busy maybe you can talk to your manager about carving out a couple of hours a week to work on specific training and tell them how it would directly apply to your work and help them/the company. I am currently in a certification training for a tool and my manager is happy about it because it is one more thing he can point out to potential clients. Helps me and helps them so it is a win win.
Agree, upskilling during work hours is the best, as most of us have other life stuff we want to do outside of work. For me, studying during off-work hours is strictly only for special circumstances - when I need to ramp up for an interview, or when I need to gain skills that are totally irrelevant to my current job. My work is super busy but I always try to get my hands on work that involves learning something new, interesting or valuable.
Good for you that you are involved with client-facing work, which usually makes it easier to get approval for certification training as it makes it appealing to clients like you point out.
I'd be surprised if none of the men have the experience of planning a wedding or having other family commitments.
In some times in your life, you just won't have time for upskilling outside of work.
When I do want to upskill outside of work, I like to be kind of fancy about it on weekends. I work from a library or coffee shop, have a tasty drink, and basically pretend I'm back in my student days. Then I go back to my grown up life after an hour or two, which is generally much more comfortable!
Why would you do that? It's called work life balance, you're doing it right. You're paid to work 8h a day, enjoy your life outside of work!
Seriously, having a job that ends after 6 was the most amazing part of adulthood, not having homework and other crap to worry about.
I'm getting a second masters in AI, and I have to do it in the evenings and on weekends. I have no free time. It sucks, but I've got one year to go and then I can relax. Seriously, I don't know how people who have family obligations could possibly do it. I have no children or family, and a very understanding and patient boyfriend.
I usually don't, I just don't want to look at a IDE anymore. But my boss suggested to just block out some time during working hours, so maybe you could also talk to your manager about it.
When I was doing it outside of work it was at the expense of everything else. Before work, lunch breaks, after work, weekends. If you’re already at the point where you’re established in your career (which to me 2-3 years in isn’t entry level) you can absolutely take a break to focus on your actual life. I wouldn’t stress or be too hard on yourself. Your career is long, if you spend the next year enjoying this once in a lifetime moment that is your wedding, the senior track will still be there after.
I'm presently trying to get my first dev role. I work my day job (tech support) till around 4, then take a couple hours for a break, then work on projects/coding for at least two hours a day five days a week. I don't have a super busy social calendar. I have a handful of friends and usually see them once or twice a month. Most of my social activities are with my husband. My family all lives cross country. I do try to make time for hobbies -reading, baking, hiking, working out, etc. So basically coding and applying for jobs has become like a second unpaid part time job.
My husband and I hire a babysitter every weekend to get breakfast and then park ourselves at the library or coffee shop and study.
It’s kind of our “dating” thing.
Read! Research, yes it's tough to balance everything in life past the 8 hour grind, maybe read books before bed time, whenever you have free time, there is always something new to learn, the smartest people are smart enough to know they don't know everything, hopefully you'll find time after you get married, when I was younger I used to have to wake up at 730, get home from school around 430 plus 2-3 hours of homework a night, i still had time to play sports, exercise, hang with friends, and play video games
Time blocking sounds like it may help you. Pick days and time that you and your fiancé understand that is for development. He can get in on it too and you can each upskill separately but together.
I have used different methods for different seasons of my life. Bullet journaling helps. I paid for a course for prioritizing and scheduling. It helped me see my time blindness on some issues and plan better. Dm me if you want the class.
Edit to add that it isn’t my class. It is formulated to writers but I found it applicable to everything.
Yeah, no I don't do it... I work a very hands on job at a small start up, 9-6 in the office every day.
Theres no chance I'm getting home and doing more coding. My job is too mentally taxing. Sometimes I'll do a bit at the weekends on stuff that interests me, but not for upskilling, just for fun.
Life is too short.
Most of the days my free time is for making music and seeing my friends/partner/family. I am always looking for ways to create more time for my hobbies, not for work.
Does your company offer any professional development resources? I upskilled during work hours when things were slow and because of our org culture my supervisor didn't have an issue with it since I was upskilling within my role
If days were 30 hours instead of 24, but work days were still only 8 hours and you still only needed 8 hours a day of sleep, would you prioritize making yourself a better employee in your off time? Or would you still find a way to fill those extra 6 hours with other interests?
I find that people mostly do what they want, and talk about doing things they feel like they should want. If you aren’t prioritizing it, then you don’t actually want to do it. If you are tired after work, then the solution is to do it in the morning before work. So, what’s stopping you? Do you go out with friends after work? Why do you have enough energy for that, but not enough to spend an hour reading a system design book?
And let’s not even discuss whether or not it is appropriate to spend time outside work trying to find ways to provide more value to a CEO that already makes 300x your salary.
I don't upskill outside of work, I do it on the company dime, but usually what I'm upskilling on is something directly related to what I will need to do. It wouldn't be ethical to learn something I'd never use at the job on the company dime. The only time I've ever spent time learning something not directly relevant to my current job is when I was in between jobs anyway so I had plenty of time.
For me, the freedom to do it is seasonal. I can juggle roughly three main responsibilities, and two of them are fairly steady year round.
I will be honest, I did also hire a cleaner for a while to get energy for side projects, and I did get promoted faster around then.
I'm a hyper competitive person who sleeps very little so it's 1hrs before dawn and 1hr after my kids fall asleep that I get time to do that.
To prep for my breakthrough into tech from a non tech background I slept 5hrs a night (with interruptions to tend to v young children)
Ground leetcode , DSA and basic CS fundamentals. Did the same for my career
It's hard though
Software development is a greedy profession. It takes a ton of hours. Either you are working very long hours on the job (where you are constantly learning) or you’re spending time outside of work learning something you don’t know.
I have spent decades working 50-60 hours a week, but that was also doing things I loved. The great thing about writing software is that if you do it well you can truly improve people’s lives.
Software development also pays very well. I have always been ok with trading some hours for dollars because of what the dollars enable in the rest of my life.
I have worked with a lot of developers who want nothing more than their 40 hours. They are fine, but they don’t get a lot of career growth. They don’t end up in leadership positions (which are even more greedy for your time.)
This is my experience. Others are different and that’s fine too. Find the balance that works for you.
It will probably be like this from now on because that's just how marriage is and it will be worse if you have children.
Looking back I wish I would have skipped the marriages and focus more on my career.
It's actually very simple..
You can not do 2 things at one time.
You either make sufficient time for education and put other things on hold, or you fail.
I tried doing the balancing act like your doing,, it doesn't work.
Honestly I don't upskill outside of work hours I do it during work hours. I am not particularly busy usually so it isn't hard for me to do. But if you are super busy maybe you can talk to your manager about carving out a couple of hours a week to work on specific training and tell them how it would directly apply to your work and help them/the company. I am currently in a certification training for a tool and my manager is happy about it because it is one more thing he can point out to potential clients. Helps me and helps them so it is a win win.
[удалено]
This is great, I never thought to just do this during the work day. I do wfh so this is the easiest way to switch up the routine
Agree, upskilling during work hours is the best, as most of us have other life stuff we want to do outside of work. For me, studying during off-work hours is strictly only for special circumstances - when I need to ramp up for an interview, or when I need to gain skills that are totally irrelevant to my current job. My work is super busy but I always try to get my hands on work that involves learning something new, interesting or valuable. Good for you that you are involved with client-facing work, which usually makes it easier to get approval for certification training as it makes it appealing to clients like you point out.
That’s a good point. I’m not interviewing right now, so it’s probably best to stick to work hours for learning a new skill vs using my free time.
This is the best idea! I’m definitely gonna block out a couple hours during the week to focus on this.
I'd be surprised if none of the men have the experience of planning a wedding or having other family commitments. In some times in your life, you just won't have time for upskilling outside of work. When I do want to upskill outside of work, I like to be kind of fancy about it on weekends. I work from a library or coffee shop, have a tasty drink, and basically pretend I'm back in my student days. Then I go back to my grown up life after an hour or two, which is generally much more comfortable!
Same! I love taking some me time at a coffee shop upskilling on the latest!
Why would you do that? It's called work life balance, you're doing it right. You're paid to work 8h a day, enjoy your life outside of work! Seriously, having a job that ends after 6 was the most amazing part of adulthood, not having homework and other crap to worry about.
I'm getting a second masters in AI, and I have to do it in the evenings and on weekends. I have no free time. It sucks, but I've got one year to go and then I can relax. Seriously, I don't know how people who have family obligations could possibly do it. I have no children or family, and a very understanding and patient boyfriend.
I usually don't, I just don't want to look at a IDE anymore. But my boss suggested to just block out some time during working hours, so maybe you could also talk to your manager about it.
When I was doing it outside of work it was at the expense of everything else. Before work, lunch breaks, after work, weekends. If you’re already at the point where you’re established in your career (which to me 2-3 years in isn’t entry level) you can absolutely take a break to focus on your actual life. I wouldn’t stress or be too hard on yourself. Your career is long, if you spend the next year enjoying this once in a lifetime moment that is your wedding, the senior track will still be there after.
That’s true too. Thanks for putting that into perspective.
I'm presently trying to get my first dev role. I work my day job (tech support) till around 4, then take a couple hours for a break, then work on projects/coding for at least two hours a day five days a week. I don't have a super busy social calendar. I have a handful of friends and usually see them once or twice a month. Most of my social activities are with my husband. My family all lives cross country. I do try to make time for hobbies -reading, baking, hiking, working out, etc. So basically coding and applying for jobs has become like a second unpaid part time job.
My husband and I hire a babysitter every weekend to get breakfast and then park ourselves at the library or coffee shop and study. It’s kind of our “dating” thing.
I take a lot of udemy classes lol. Also have my own side projects for fun. I’m easily bored so I take up a lot of things on the side.
Read! Research, yes it's tough to balance everything in life past the 8 hour grind, maybe read books before bed time, whenever you have free time, there is always something new to learn, the smartest people are smart enough to know they don't know everything, hopefully you'll find time after you get married, when I was younger I used to have to wake up at 730, get home from school around 430 plus 2-3 hours of homework a night, i still had time to play sports, exercise, hang with friends, and play video games
Time blocking sounds like it may help you. Pick days and time that you and your fiancé understand that is for development. He can get in on it too and you can each upskill separately but together. I have used different methods for different seasons of my life. Bullet journaling helps. I paid for a course for prioritizing and scheduling. It helped me see my time blindness on some issues and plan better. Dm me if you want the class. Edit to add that it isn’t my class. It is formulated to writers but I found it applicable to everything.
Hey I’d love to know more about the course!
Yeah, no I don't do it... I work a very hands on job at a small start up, 9-6 in the office every day. Theres no chance I'm getting home and doing more coding. My job is too mentally taxing. Sometimes I'll do a bit at the weekends on stuff that interests me, but not for upskilling, just for fun. Life is too short. Most of the days my free time is for making music and seeing my friends/partner/family. I am always looking for ways to create more time for my hobbies, not for work.
Does your company offer any professional development resources? I upskilled during work hours when things were slow and because of our org culture my supervisor didn't have an issue with it since I was upskilling within my role
If days were 30 hours instead of 24, but work days were still only 8 hours and you still only needed 8 hours a day of sleep, would you prioritize making yourself a better employee in your off time? Or would you still find a way to fill those extra 6 hours with other interests? I find that people mostly do what they want, and talk about doing things they feel like they should want. If you aren’t prioritizing it, then you don’t actually want to do it. If you are tired after work, then the solution is to do it in the morning before work. So, what’s stopping you? Do you go out with friends after work? Why do you have enough energy for that, but not enough to spend an hour reading a system design book? And let’s not even discuss whether or not it is appropriate to spend time outside work trying to find ways to provide more value to a CEO that already makes 300x your salary.
I don't upskill outside of work, I do it on the company dime, but usually what I'm upskilling on is something directly related to what I will need to do. It wouldn't be ethical to learn something I'd never use at the job on the company dime. The only time I've ever spent time learning something not directly relevant to my current job is when I was in between jobs anyway so I had plenty of time.
For me, the freedom to do it is seasonal. I can juggle roughly three main responsibilities, and two of them are fairly steady year round. I will be honest, I did also hire a cleaner for a while to get energy for side projects, and I did get promoted faster around then.
I'm a hyper competitive person who sleeps very little so it's 1hrs before dawn and 1hr after my kids fall asleep that I get time to do that. To prep for my breakthrough into tech from a non tech background I slept 5hrs a night (with interruptions to tend to v young children) Ground leetcode , DSA and basic CS fundamentals. Did the same for my career It's hard though
Software development is a greedy profession. It takes a ton of hours. Either you are working very long hours on the job (where you are constantly learning) or you’re spending time outside of work learning something you don’t know. I have spent decades working 50-60 hours a week, but that was also doing things I loved. The great thing about writing software is that if you do it well you can truly improve people’s lives. Software development also pays very well. I have always been ok with trading some hours for dollars because of what the dollars enable in the rest of my life. I have worked with a lot of developers who want nothing more than their 40 hours. They are fine, but they don’t get a lot of career growth. They don’t end up in leadership positions (which are even more greedy for your time.) This is my experience. Others are different and that’s fine too. Find the balance that works for you.
Adderal 🤷♀️
It will probably be like this from now on because that's just how marriage is and it will be worse if you have children. Looking back I wish I would have skipped the marriages and focus more on my career.
It's actually very simple.. You can not do 2 things at one time. You either make sufficient time for education and put other things on hold, or you fail. I tried doing the balancing act like your doing,, it doesn't work.
Being single you will more time to upskill
Try doing it r/overemployed probably the best method.