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Comment by michaelchisari | Hacker News Reader

A lot of people are suggesting that you limit the number of projects, but an alternative approach is to limit the amount of time each day that you spend on each subject, yet maintain a consistent schedule.

I always remind myself "15 minutes a day is better than an hour every three days". But in order to prevent getting over-stressed about time and how quickly you're learning, you have to put your ego aside and simply stick to a schedule of learning a little bit of each subject every day.

That means limiting yourself when you want to go on a binge just as much as it means making time to get your 15 minutes in. Three days of binging on a subject can start to build pressure that you should maintain that level, and that's not sustainable.

Small amounts of new knowledge, every day, until you've hit your goal.

No matter how old you are, you still have plenty of time to take things slow.

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I agree about the schedule. I currently have 2 hours a day for learning. I spend an hour at a cafe reading (currently Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari) every morning before work. And an hour at home after work before anyone else gets home to do software stuff (currently learrning/implementing Stripe payments). Then on top of that if I have free time in the weekend I spend it on whatever project excites me the most(learning to sketch atm).

I think that building up strong habits around what you are working on makes it easy to maintain momentus.

I also agreee that even small increments of time can incredibly productive, like listening to an audiobook during a 15 minute commute.

How do you find Sapiens? I started reading it (about pg. 50 now) but I find it too full conclusions/statements that are not really founded on data. Basically, it tends sets up two or more premises and then somehow draws a conclusion that isn't in anyway related to the original premises (i.e: almost pseudoscience).

I am nearly finished now and really enjoyed reading it. The book leaves me with more questions than it answers, I appreciate this in a book though.

It provides just enough information to interest you in a subject, then offers a few common theories with a reasoned most likely case (this is especially prevelant in the beginning of the book due to the lack of information available about humanity tens of thousands of years ago). Most of the assumptions made though are not the author's and there are references in the Notes section at the back if you do want to pursue these further.

I agree on limiting time the amount of time you work per per day to maintain momentum, but for me (and perhaps some others), its also really helpful to limit the number of things you work on per day to cut down on context switching costs -- for three projects, spending 45 minutes per day working on one project (and rotating which one i work on each day) as opposed to 15 minutes per project each day. Thought this also strongly depends on the type of learning.

I do a combination of the two which so far has not let me down

I totally agree with you. The "every day a little bit no matter how little" can take you way farther and I believe it's usually the most sustainable way to approach personal goals or learning projects.

Actually I followed that motto to build https://everydaycheck.com which is actually about that, to work on goals every day. One of the tricks I always share is to quantify the daily milestone, like "15 minutes of learning js" or "run 3km"

This is interesting as I’m attempting to replicate a normal school’s curriculum. At school, we often take 4-6 subjects a day, which I now realise is the aspect I enjoyed most, and missed terribly at university. But now, it’s not so easy with other commitments, and also there is almost no mentor/peer support.

15 minutes per subject per day is a bit controversial for me though, as when I get into the swing of things, I work really hard. But I’ve never thought about this affecting momentum, perhaps my getting overwhelmed is actually a sign of burnout

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