How do you stay productive in learning from courses?

[elliotalderson]

How do you guys stay productive and utilize time wisely? I would like to know your study methods or daily routines that you adopt to maximize learning and stick to a schedule. I procrastinate a lot during the day and feel like a complete loser at the end of the day. But, this same routine gets repeated the next day. I am done with being this way. Any suggestions and methods that you use daily are most welcome.

(Mods, Kindly approve this post)

 

[ssbsvvv]

Great question. I too struggle with this.

One of the things that my SO uses is breaking the course into multiple milestones, and on achiving a milesone, rewarding herself. eg: Dinner at her fav resturant.

Each of the milestones written down one a book / on a post-it, and moving it from backlog -> inprogress -> done (think kanban style), and writing a short summary about how she felt about the task(rather than the summary/notes from the task itself) when she completed the task.

I am trying this out too, but with little success, so ymmv.

But what I am looking for is something like an accountablity bot on telegram, to which I can give access to my todo list/what I want to do, and it looks at it, and messages me, asks me what is going on. If I do find something useful, I will add to this thread.


I'm also curious how others are doing.

 

[elliotalderson]

Great question. I too struggle with this.

That method sounds good. Glad that it is working for her.

 

[niki2711]

keep learning

 

[bump]

• Don't skibidi bopping jump or change to another course if you haven't finish the current one (exception if the current one bad)
• maybe change thing from time to time?, I'm learning web dev on workday (so i get paid while learning), and design on weekend if i have the time or feel like it.
• Don't make it a chore, do it (learn) when you feel like doing it, rest when you feel tired.
• Don't "marathon" the "course", it's not an anime or tv show so you better take your time and pay attention (said the js web developer who have to learn new thing every week).
• I've tried playing video at 1.5x speed (sometimes 2x speed) and it save me a lot of time.
• I'm using
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  to help me focus, you can use some free pomodoro app online if you want to try.

@ssbsvvv suggestion also good, make milestone..... well it's easier said than done, but I've done it so can you.

 

[Alien]

"I procrastinate a lot during the day and feel like a complete loser at the end of the day."

... sounds familiar Don't put yourself in position that you need to something or that the time is running out.. (60, 59, 58...just counting)

Eat, exercise and sleep at the same time every day. Don't eat junk food, exercise hard every single day and sleep at least 8/9h. Don't switch courses - stick to one thing and don't spent to much time just watching videos. Break problems to smaller chunks and make breaks regularly. If you are doing hundred of things every single day in the real life and after that you come to study...you're going to feel miserable...also, don't spend to much time on computer.

 

[elliotalderson]

@bump @Alien Thanks for your input. Sounds good. I'm in the work of creating a basic routine. Will try to stick to it hopefully

 

[antoniorap]

Personally speaking it's all about determination, for me study became something i want and i have to do and also something that i can't avoid. But before that, i've always been a very procrastinative person for a great part of my life, recently i learned that if i want to excel in my life i have to do the dirty work. Yes, you have to work smarter but also harder if you want to become what you want to become you have to put real effort and time, there is no overnight success.

Regarding a method of study, i tested multiple ones but none seemed to work for me and i went straight to study from a couple of hours a day to entire days. As @bump said, don't make it a chore. Have fun long the way and take some pauses/breaks when you feel you need to rest because it's very important and move your focus to the basics/foundations of that topic, master them and then start seeing small results from what you have learned so far, and then move on with the rest. Also, correct some of your bad habits you might have for example, in my case i didn't exercise at all, i started doing some exercises at home and now i also feel to have more energy during the day.

Hope to give you another point of view!

 

[elliotalderson]

Personally speaking it's all about determination, for me study became something i want and i have to do and also something that i can't avoid. But before that, i've always been a very procrastinative person for a great part of my life, recently i learned that if i want to excel in my life i have to do the dirty work. Yes, you have to work smarter but also harder if you want to become what you want to become you have to put real effort and time, there is no overnight success.

Regarding a method of study, i tested multiple ones but none seemed to work for me and i went straight to study from a couple of hours a day to entire days. As @bump said, don't make it a chore. Have fun long the way and take some pauses/breaks when you feel you need to rest because it's very important and move your focus to the basics/foundations of that topic, master them and then start seeing small results from what you have learned so far, and then move on with the rest. Also, correct some of your bad habits you might have for example, in my case i didn't exercise at all, i started doing some exercises at home and now i also feel to have more energy during the day.

Hope to give you another point of view!

That's wonderful. Yes, I do workout and it really helps mentally too. Thanks for your advice. Planning to stick to a routine that I just made.

 

[kusnigram1337]

I want to share a productivity tip that helped me excel in my technical interviews.

Whenever I watched a course clip, like one explaining the difference between stack and heap memory allocation, I would try to teach that concept out loud as if I were explaining it to someone else.
This method quickly reveals any gaps in your understanding.

After identifying these gaps, I would rewatch the clip or consult ChatGPT to clarify the specific areas I didn't grasp.
Once I could fully explain the concept, I imagined myself in front of a classroom of smart kids who would ask challenging questions.
If I couldn't answer those questions, I turned to ChatGPT for help.

Next, I would ask ChatGPT to generate questions about the topic for further practice.

For aspiring programmers, here's an additional tip:
find a friend who is also interested in becoming a programmer.
Teach them what you've learned in detail.
This not only helps you identify gaps in your knowledge but also prepares you for technical interviews.
Explaining concepts clearly sets you apart from other candidates.
As someone who now conducts technical interviews, I can attest that this ability to teach and communicate complex ideas is a key differentiator.