Alternative: go full-on emacs, without evil. I think you need to do that, at least at first, to really learn emacs.

How to still get your work done: continue to use vim for your "work," and at first just use emacs to learn emacs. As soon as practical, start using emacs to do just one thing from your work. Somewhere soon after this you'll be comfortable enough to do everything from emacs (although still not an expert), and then you'll be able to decide to stick with it or go back.