Blog Update
My posting frequency has been abysmal this year primarily due to starting up school again. I started this blog right before I kicked off my return to university and my time has been in a severe crunch since.
It is times like this that I tend to reflect on how much time is truly available to us. I spent a ton of time in extracurricular activities before starting back to school, and I am amazed at just how much I miss that time. I am also amazed at how much I am able to accomplish when I am under the wire, especially for school. I have spent the majority of my free time this summer completing homework and studying for the two classes I registered for. Why is this important? BECAUSE, when I say the majority of my time, I am talking about 3–4 hours per weekday and 4-6 hours over the weekend. If I were to add these hours up and distribute them across a year, that would fall somewhere between 780 and 1,040 hours (low) and 1,196 and 1,664 hours (high). Let's use the median between the high and low as an estimate, which is 1,222 hours per year.
What does 1 hour of time mean to us? Well, a cursory glance at Udemy shows that if I were to spend all of my "free time" taking online courses for a year, I could complete EVERY class that I have on my wish list. That is a total of 22 classes, weighing in at around 400 hours of lecture time. So, not only could I learn a ridiculous 22 new skills in a year, I could easily triple that. How many people do you know out in the world that are adding new skill sets to their tool belt, let alone 20+ per year? If my wish list is any indicator, on average, a person using Udemy could learn a new skill once every 18 hours of study time. Now I understand this is not skill mastery, but mastery can be achieved by taking more advanced classes or spending more hands-on time, and as I noted above, I could easily triple my wish list, which means I could spend more time on skills I want to gain mastery over while still adding exposure to others. So again, how much is an hour of time worth? About 5% of a new skill. Every hour spent on learning a new skill puts the learner 5% closer to being adept at it.
Imagine you are playing a video game, and every hour the player gains 5% more potency in skill. In one day of skilling, the character would be 100% more powerful than the previous day. How many people out in the world have logged hundreds or even thousands of hours playing their favorite game when they could have been leveling themselves up and skill stacking making them more valuable to the world around them? YOU COULD BE 5% BETTER EVERYDAY, by simply spending an hour learning.
I would like to encourage anyone reading this blog to identify 1 skill they want to start learning, find a course on Udemy or YouTube, and finish 18 hours of studying that skill. If my learning is any indicator, you will not be disappointed.
GET OUT of HERE, GO DO IT!
Each hour you are losing 5% of your potential!
