How do you manage work, child, family and study time?

Question

I don't know if its only me guys but I've tried several times to begin C#, SQL, Java basic courses but I quit in the middle. I find the hardest part to be my time management and the following lack of motivation due to lack of free time. My brain seems to be refusing new information after work hours (I'm 35 y old). This application is working just perfect but still i feel it's not enough to learn and become a good novice.

Answer 1

David Carroll
I will be looking forward to what you share in the context.

Alex there is no rush. Take your time. Try to figure out how much time you can give for coding. Slowly, with the matter of time everything will fall in place. Just don't loose hope. Never give up and Sololearn community is always here to help you.

Good luck friend 🙂👍

Answer 2

Hello Alex, let me tell you about my experience with coding so far.
I started learning Python almost 2 years ago, while pregnant with my boy (he just turned 1yo). I knew nothing about coding. Started with a Coursera course, then I kept practicing with a book (all while taking care of my then 4 yo daughter and the house). Before he was born I was studying maybe 1or 2 hours a day.
Right now while I'm writing this he is asleep in my arms, I have been studying and coding in his nap times, and that's all the time I have.
Dina is right, bathroom, school bus/pickup time, every minute counts and it adds up, if you just keep at it you will see progress.
I wrote my first program while waiting outside the school to pick up my daughter, baby asleep in his car seat.
I use Pydroid 3, it's an app that lets me code on my phone, so I can code anywhere anytime, maybe there's a mobile editor for the languages you are interested in. Don't give up, just do something every day, & don't worry about your age, I'm 39 😉😁👍

Answer 3

Have you considered creating a game or project? One you can share with your family? I pestered my family as I learned and it paid off my kid is now the lead programmer for her Robotics team. They act bored by it but something must have sunk in lol. Best of Luck!

Answer 4

Alex The question should remain. While it may fall in the gray area for Q&A, I think the structure, clarity, and context makes it suitable and relevant to many people in your situation.

I'll try to circle back when I get a moment to share some advice on this later. I may have a few thoughts on this as a family man myself. However, my perspective will be from that of someone who has been professionally coding since I was in college back in 1996.

Answer 5

02 walking through a 4-story office between a hundred computers and a server room. I forced myself to take lessons in transport on the way to and from work. All the same, you sit or stand, there is nothing to do. Since I do not like social networks and youtube bloggers, when I am bored - I listen to music, read some book on my or try to take another lesson in Sololearn. One of my comrade, a programmer, said that he managed to make the most progress in learning English when he studied it on the bus on the way to work and from work throughout the year. At home - laziness, I want to rest. But there’s nothing to do on the bus anyway.

Answer 6

Hi Alex
This is not a coding problem, but a life problem.
Your priorities are wife & child, work, coding.
35 is young, you are also in the hardest period of your life.
Concentrate on your most important assets - family.
Continue to succeed at work.
Allow coding to develop with time, this way, it will not just be another pressure

Answer 7

[Part 3 of 5]
5. Learn the art of quickly locating specific references from the official online documentation to quickly find the syntax and usage examples of anything you need to recall about a language as needed.

6. At some point, come up with a passion project involving a database and some sort of UI, depending on the language / languages you've been learning. When you reach this point, I can give some guidance on how to approach organizing your development effort based on a backlog of features. This will be the point when you begin to learn what you really need to know as you need to know it.

I could go on and on, but this is getting way too long already. 😉

To sum it up, don't aim for memorizing everything. Spend time developing an intuition for coding based on patterns you pick up as you practice simple daily code katas. Have the language documentation on hand as you will need to reference those concepts until you've mastered them through repetition.

Answer 8

[Part 5 of 5]
BTW... If you want more of this type of insight from me, there is a treasure trove of some fantastic advice and information in my AMA responses.

I spent a lot of time giving quality responses to many great questions regarding professional advice, learning tips, interviews, startups, and anything related to a career in software engineering.

Just be sure to sort the comments by Most Recent, then scroll all the way down to the first question and work your way up. I think you will find those responses to be very helpful and inspirational.

https://www.sololearn.com/learn/17360/?ref=app

Answer 9

01 It's amazing that you returned after 6 months of absence. And before that - you still haven’t entered this program for half a year. And I know what your problem is: after a whole day working at a computer, it’s hard to force yourself to do computer work again (programming even on the phone is the same for the brain as working on a computer). Paid programming courses can make you learn. Napoleon Hill wrote about this in the book "Think and Grow Rich", which was published in 1937. He signed up for an economist (or broker? I don't remember) course, which sent the materials by mail. Then he got tired and he quit. But according to the contract it was necessary to pay regularly for the materials sent. And he decided that throwing away money in vain is a pity. Therefore, I graduated. I am now a freelancer and do a lot of laziness. But I remember very well how lazy it was to take Sololearn lessons after work. When you want to quickly have dinner and fall on the bed. Because all day you get tired of w...

Answer 10

[Part 2 of 5]
3. Don't allow yourself to get overwhelmed by what seems like an impossible amount of things to memorize. Rather, focus on developing an intuition based on patterns and concepts you pick up. Your deeper understanding will follow as you continue to reinforce these concepts with practice and continued research along the way.

4. Look out for those moments where you go from barely grasping a simple concept to having this epiphany moment where the concept just intuitively clicks for you. That moment of exhilarating clarity will trigger another set of epiphanies triggering even more and so on. I refer to this as the "Explosion of Epiphanies" for developers.

It could happen as you're about to fall asleep, while driving, showering, exercising, etc. When it happens, you will begin to instantaneously understand things you felt were so difficult to grasp. You'll likely revisit everything you've written through a different set of lenses and be shocked by how quickly you can now write your code.

Answer 11

[Part 4 of 5]
Finally... be on the look out for that moment where you experience your first epiphany moment and the many that will follow like a chain reaction and ride that wave as you will be well on your way to picking things up much more rapidly.

You'll reach this milestone much sooner than you think, so it's good to be aware that it could happen anytime. Just remember, daily coding practice is essential for this to occur.

When it does happen, you will no doubt be recharged with new found motivation to push forward with great excitement.

I hope these suggestions made sense and are helpful.

Regardless, best of luck to you in this journey.

Answer 12

[Part 1 of 5]
Alex First, I commend you on making the effort. I can only imagine the struggle as I started my own coder's journey about 5 years prior to having our 1st of 4 children.

I remember spending countless hours immersed in self study as I took on my first dev project while still in college.

While I may not be able to help with the time constraint challenges, perhaps I can offer some advice that may ease the learning curve and motivational challenges.

1. When going through a course, don't try to memorize everything you're learning. Rather, fly through the concepts as fast as possible. Focus on making a mental note of the concepts. You will reinforce these concepts many times over in practice as you revisit these things throughout the years.

2. Force yourself to practice writing simple imperative code so that this becomes second nature. On days you don't want to learn something new, spend time using what you've learned by completing code katas on CodeWars or something similar.

Answer 13

Thank you all! I'm amazed by the understanding, support and spirit that this community brings. The shared advice and experience are precios things. Take care! All the best!

Answer 14

1st I wanna say, e/o is different : you have to figure out what motivates YOU.

For me, it's maintaining the daily streak. I'm not sure, but I think all you have to do is open the app.
Everyone's got a minute to do that, right? This gets me into the app...

If you tell yourself you need to set aside an hour+ to code, you might not find the time for it. Try doing 5-15 minutes. (basically just read about 1 new concept, and try to understand/practice it.)
You can even do this on your lunch break : then you're not tired after work.
Other places: bathroom, waiting for schoolbus/pickup, in line at checkout, or even wake up 15 min earlier.

As long as I make sure to open the app every day, it ensures that no matter what, I'll be making SOME progress. Better than nothing.

I've found the app a little addictive, kind of like social media. I go on just to learn 1 lesson and end up doing more...

This is just to get you ON the app. u'll have to figure out how to get urself off of it & prioritize the rest... 😂

Answer 15

Thanks David Carroll to come up on right time to give your insight as I was going through q & a.

Your suggestion, tips and advice are so helpful in some or the other way! 😃😊

Answer 16

I've started with 40, two years ago. I have no kids, but lately, as I'm working more and I'm fighting with deadlines, I see that I write less and less code.

It's not so hard to find a few minutes here and there, but it seems some *immersion* is needed to really give you a kick, like a few hours in one piece where you don't get disturbed.

Still trying to solve that one. 😅

However, I think it's a good idea not to think about 'learning programming' as a whole, but about 'getting a project done'.

It doesn't have to be something big, it can e. g. be some simple task from hackerrank.com. You just try to solve it and google for what you need as you go. Or ask here.

There's no fixed course for what you have to learn, and you'll never know it all anyway, so you can just as well go from mini-project to mini-project, adding a little knowledge each time.

Three advantages:

1.) You can do with small time windows.
2.) You practice thinking in code.
3.) You *feel* like a coder, because you're solving tasks.

Answer 17

Your choice buddy.
The mods will delete this thread if they believe it is not relevant, but questions about work - life balance are always worthy.
Take care

Answer 18

Thank you Rik,
I believe you are right about it all. I'm pushing in the exact same order.
Should I delete this question for the sake of data then?

Answer 19

Hey Alex after so much great advice It will be tough to add something of value here.
But, I wanted to say a few words because I understand your struggle.

If you're really motivated to learn anything you can do it! It becomes easyer the more you learn! I have read it a lot, set tiny goals! Start with 30 mins a day for 1 month or someting, after that works out, try to double it or something like that.

Find your drive to motivate yourself to invest time into this. If you are really interested, it will be much easyer to learn new things.

You said you tried java, sql, C#. Maybe these courses were not what you were looking for.. Keep searching!

And most of all, if you want it keep trying!

Best of luck to you Alex! 😉

Answer 20

I say stick at it. Eventually, the time required to spend on your kids will reduce as they become more independent. Then you will definitely start to achieve more. Just enjoy life and your coding. Don't think of anything as a chore.