You could just work for a couple hours per day on it, or 10-20 hours per week on it.
Smaller opportunity cost missed and more likely to complete the goal than just taking a sabbatical.
Smaller opportunity cost missed and more likely to complete the goal than just taking a sabbatical.
It's not like I don't have the time, it's the fact that I'm way too tired after work to do any substantial amount of learning. I think I could manage something that's much easier, say learning some languages or learning how to knit. But learning math, physics, etc just requires more than I have to give after work.
That said, I managed to get a firm understanding of orbital mechanics up to a level where I could probably ace all the tests for freshman-level courses at an aerospace university and I did all of it on Saturday afternoons (but it took me 5 years to do so).
Sooo...... you play KSP? ;)
In my study project, I learned thoroughly how to solve different two body problems (initial value, boundary value, closest approach) and wrote a C library [0] that's got all the orbital mechanics code you need to write your own Kerbal Space Program clone (but I don't intend to do that). During the process, I read 3-4 books and an inch thick pile of research papers.
You'll often hear about famous writers, hollywood-writers, etc. doing this type of technique of doing their best creative work before the chaos of the day sets in.