

Ask HN: How do you juggle time spent on learning vs. time building things? - geeko

Hi,
I started work at a big coorporation with a three letter acronym about a year ago. The consulting job is quite challenging and fun. Most of all, 
I get to learn how to deal with people.<p>However there's one general thing which bugs me about work life:
During my uni time, I always found time to study beyond the "required stuff" (i.e. to pass the exam) and focus on the fun part (aka. study for f's sake).
Looking back over the last year, I haven't been able to read any scientific book, learn a new programming language, read any fundamental papers nor any
published specification of my field. It just feels like there's no time for things which are important but not urgent and instantly useful.<p>I assume this problem doesn't only apply to people in a big corporation but even more so for people in a startup, where time is scarce and execution is king.<p>How do HN people organize their time in this regard? How much time do you spend in actively learning fundamentals vs. time spent on building stuff?
======
Ixiaus
I came to a similar conclusion as you have about seven months ago. My
conclusion was that 9-to-5 takes far too much time and energy out of my own
life; I'm essentially giving all of that time to someone just for the ability
to pay bills and enjoy eating out on the weekends.

I had very little time to do any of my personal self education or projects
(not all of them are programming related either).

I chose to resign from a great company and a great job to pursue my own
interests. I've been pinching pennies everyday for the last seven months
living off of what passive income I have. I've been (with more-or-less
consistency) rising at 6AM every day, showering then meditating and running a
spaced repetition program for thirty minutes. Three days are dedicated to
projects and two days dedicated to self education.

When I speak of self education I am not speaking exclusively of programming
which seems to be the common interpretation amongst techies - it's a full
fledged curriculum involving Mathematics, Logic, Rhetoric, Psychology,
Physics, Philosophy, and etc...

I've completed two major projects in that time and actually _read_ more books
in the last seven months than I ever did in the three years I spent in the
work force. 9-to-5 is quite a sham, unless you happen to have a job working in
the R&D department of some corporation where you have the opportunity to
explore, learn, and be creative that the other cubicle workers do not share.

After seven months though, I'm a bit weary of pinching pennies - I want to be
able to eat out at a nice restaurant when I want to or buy that new computer
because I want to; or go sailing for the weekend with my girlfriend and
friends. Many things require money. My solution here? No job, but contract
work - I now have a two month contract that will make me enough money to live
for another seven months. I've also considered going into part time
contracting so that I can continue to make money but also have enough time to
pursue my polymath interests.

Good luck, leaving the group mind is worth the risk (it really turns out there
isn't much risk) - you will feel much more free with your intellectual
pursuits, projects, and personal development.

~~~
geeko
@Ixiaus, are you on twitter? Would love to continue reading how you're doing.
Your homepage link works as well of course.

Feel free to drop me an email (vp[at]dinhmail.de) when you're traveling to
Germany. Beers on me :-)

~~~
julsonl
I'm also intending of following down this path. There are so much things that
I want to learn that I neglected to do when I had copious amounts of free time
( _hint_ university). I would also like to know how you're handling this.

------
jnovek
"I assume this problem doesn't only apply to people in a big corporation but
even more so for people in a startup, where time is scarce and execution is
king."

I found that I stopped learning things when I started working for someone
else. Then when I started working on my startup, I started learning things
again.

In a startup, getting stuff done is the most important thing. There's no one
else to get stuff done, so if you need something and you don't know how to do
it, you have to learn how. And unless you're an amazing programmer, it's
usually predictably awful.

------
ax0n
I was recently laid off from (oddly) a Three-Letter-Corporation after a 3.5
year run of things, but probably not the one you work for. For the last 20
years, I've been passionate about technology, and for more than half of that,
I've been publishing technical articles (or at least rants) on my findings.
It's now been a little over a week since I was let go and you'd think I'd be
up to my elbows in projects and knowledge... but now, I'm having trouble
mustering up the drive and passion I used to have. It's like my soul is gone.

~~~
aerique
Such things take time. Take a break and if you've got the monetary reserves go
travel on your own or start learning to play guitar.

~~~
ax0n
I play bass guitar and I love it. I don't have much cash on hand, but the
misses and I can probably make it last to the beginning of march. Definitely
not enough for me to fly off somewhere. It's also too cold in Kansas City for
me to go one one of my bicycle camping adventures. I should probably get out
and ride some more, though. Maybe that'll help.

~~~
davidw
If you like cycling, maybe moving someplace nicer for it would be a good idea
and a good change of pace.

~~~
ax0n
I ride to work (and for errands) year round despite the weather. It's not that
big of a deal. Riding my bike 40 miles out of town then camping in this stuff,
though, would be a tall order with the gear I have. Mostly, the camping part
would suck.

------
chreko
I am struggling with that same problem since I started my first job after
graduation. For many times I had the feeling to have sacrificed myself and my
personal interest for my career (= someoneelse).

Only recently, I realized that this was a good experience nevertheless, but
which has to stop now. It was good because it made it clear to me, what my
preferences were as well as my strength and weaknesses. In other words who I
am. Now I am _taking_ my time for _my_ interests (meditation, art and self-
consciousness). This leads me to the following main messages as answer to your
questions:

1.) You need to learn what you really want from life. And this, like every
learning process, takes time and detours.

If you want to learn technology-related stuff, then you chances are pretty
high that you may find an employee that is willing to give you freedom for
personal projects, where you can learn and experience on your own (i.e.
google's "Innovation Time Off"). If this isn't possible where you are now,
then you may consider looking for another job where you can bargain this as
part of your contract.

If, instead, we are talking about learning for personal growth or "self
education" as Ixiaus wrote, then it becomes really interesting. Here I agree
with Ixiaus. One way is to make some sacrifices for what you really want to
do: e.g. earning less money but having more time for "self education". If your
are ready for that, then look for a part-time job indeed, or build-up a
sustainable startup were you don't have to make millions a year and report to
a venture capitalist, but instead where earning some $10k is enough.

2.) Admit and be aware of your weaknesses. Several times, I find myself
blaming myself for not being able to do this or to do that in the way and
speed I wish it to be done. And when I have the time, I sometimes find myself
spending that rare time with whatever.

But this is ok, as long as I continue working on my self, gradually improving
the conscience use of my time. In particular, consider this: 6 hours of deep
sleep are enough. This gives me some extra hours in the early morning and/or
late evening for practising whatever I want to (meditation and yoga).
Discipline is key, I always have to remember!

3.) The more dependent you are (the more money you want or believe to need or
need), the less time you will have for "self education".

The dependencies can come from difference sources: your employees, your
venture capitalist, your customers, your spouse, your children, ...., your
expectations. Each of those relationships are chains around your neck. One
first need to be aware of them, not imperatively avoid them. Then one can
gently work towards reducing those dependencies, if one wishes to do so.

------
imp
I tend to alternate between two extremes. One extreme is "get shit done anyway
you know how ASAP!" The other is "learn, explore, take your time, and do
things right." I let my own ambitions determine which zone I'm in, and they
last from a couple weeks to months. What I learn while I'm in the "take it
slow" zone always helps me be more productive in the "do it now" zone. And the
do it now zone helps keep me motivated to learn more stuff, and the cycle
repeats :)

~~~
geeko
Are you doing anything to nurture these two extremes? Or do they just come
naturally to you?

Your comment reminds me of a discussion I had with my cofounder long time ago
(yes I have tried the startup path multiple times). We were discussing how
this pattern of wildness, of strong desire to produce things follows an almost
relaxing, reflecting period. The discussion arose while we were learning about
the coding and refactoring cycle during the extreme programming days in
Karlsruhe, Germany where I used to study.

~~~
imp
No, not anything in particular. It's mostly natural because if I spend too
much time in the "just work hard" extreme I get burned out eventually. I'm
also too antsy to spend a lot of time in the learning extreme because I like
to see concrete results eventually. Since I'm comfortable with my long-run
track record of learning and producing, I never let myself feel guilty for
doing either extreme.

The only other factor is time of year. I tend to learn during Christmas
because when I was in college I used that time for reading and reflecting
between semesters. I still get the urge to just sit and read and explore
around that time of year.

------
j_baker
The assumption is that learning things increases your execution time. In the
very short term this is true. However, if you'd spent all the time learning
the things that you wanted to learn, how much more productive would you be?

It's like Jeff Bezos said:

"I always tell people, if we have a good quarter it's because of the work we
did three, four, and five years ago. It's not because we did a good job this
quarter."

This is a pattern that I've (anecdotally) noticed in successful entrepreneurs
and programmers... the ability to focus on the long term at the expense of the
short term (but without sacrificing the short-term).

Long story short, if you are in an employment situation where your employer
_will not_ let you spend any more time learning new things, you should
consider employment elsewhere.

~~~
geeko
In consulting, it's usually not your employer that pushes you. It's your
clients. In a startup, it's either your investors or your customer
(hopefully). Either way, there's always forces that want you to execute
instead of learn. There's no direct visible gain from you learning. It's like
climate change. It's important, but noone in power cares.

I totally agree with your long term statement. And I do also agree with you on
the fact that just learning without execution renders your learning useless.

The thing is, how do you juggle between these two extremes? @imp notes below:

"I let my own ambitions determine which zone I'm in, and they last from a
couple weeks to months."

The cycle seems to come naturally to him. For others like @Ixiaus it takes
more conscious effort (I assume, since he quit his job to be able to learn the
things which matter to him).

~~~
j_baker
Part of it is that you need to find ways to justify learning things. It's
really easy to learn things that have a direct impact on your job. You may be
different, but I know programmers who won't even learn things that directly
impact their jobs. And unless it will take a very significant chunk of time,
it's usually pretty easy to make this kind of learning transparent to clients
and managers. You might be surprised at how much you can learn just by
spending the extra couple of hours learning to do something the "right way"
rather than just sticking to what you know.

Of course, if that's something you're already doing, kudos. Now, if we're
talking about things that don't apply to anything at all, your choices are
either going to have to be:

1\. Find a way to "sneak in" an hour or two a week if it doesn't interfere
with your tasks. 2\. Learn it on your own time.

If your management/clients aren't going to allow option 1, you may just have
to decide whether you want to learn on your own time or if you want to find a
job where you can spend a bit of time learning.

------
arebop
I had a similar experience in my first year after college working for BigCo
IT. I'm somewhat surprised that you went through this at a tech company, so I
guess "big" is an important factor.

Initially I thought that as with my high school programming job, I'd learn a
lot at work. I also bought into a certain sense of obligation: "I'm salaried,
so work doesn't stop after 8 hours a day!" I came to realize that work
wouldn't be completely intellectually fulfilling, and that I value
intellectual growth over corporate loyalty. I decided to explicitly dedicate
time for intellectual advancement apart from my regular job responsibilities.

So, my first antidote to intellectual stagnation was to apply for tuition
reimbursement and enroll as a part-time grad student. I made arrangements to
work half days on MWF or take very long lunches TT. Real-life lectures are
better than online ones because you can ask questions, and the homeworks and
exams are very helpful for giving you an objective reference on your progress.

That didn't help my salary or my future job prospects (as far as I can tell),
but I'm very glad I did it. I think it worked out well for my employer during
that time, too, because it kept me happy enough stick around at a lowish
salary for a couple years when I was performing very well but not feeling very
challenged at work.

The second thing is that I maintained my ACM membership and read Queue and
CACM. I think that helps me to stay somewhat aware of the progress of the
field. I've used the digital library several times to help me with
particularly thorny programming problems at work.

Finally, if you're not doing new stuff at work, try to motivate yourself to do
something new at home. Maybe you just implement an algorithm you read about
from CACM Research Highlights or whatever, or maybe you join a programming
club and volunteer to teach a topic. I think it's very important to keep doing
and not just reading.

------
benedwards
I learn by building stuff.

Being able to show off something you've built is better than showing a
certificate for something you studied for.

~~~
geeko
It sounds easy to do so. Too often however, I find myself reading how-tos and
copy-pasting tutorials while building stuff...and forgetting everything after
I finished.

I have the feeling that google has significantly changed the way I store
things in my head (for the better or worse). Instead of remembering how things
are done and why so, I at best save a mental hyperlink to the information or
worse, I just rely on google to be available and give me the tutorial/code
snippet I need at that very moment (and again forgetting all afterwards).

Being forced to reproduce what you've learned at least once without having
google is actually useful (at least for the way my brain works).

~~~
mrtron
Read a book on Zen.

Approach everything with a "beginner's mind". Never blow through a new
tutorial cutting and pasting even if you are very experienced in the area.
Take your time, learn as a beginner, but leverage your experience to instantly
jump from beginner to expert once you have the necessary domain knowledge.

~~~
DTrejo
Is there a specific book you found helpful?

~~~
mrtron
I enjoyed [http://www.amazon.ca/Zen-Mind-Beginners-Shunryu-
Suzuki/dp/08...](http://www.amazon.ca/Zen-Mind-Beginners-Shunryu-
Suzuki/dp/0834800799)

A well written combination biography + philosophy book on Zen.

------
eraad
I work at my own startup where I manage my own time and usually, the best time
to read/learn is when I get stuck in the process of building something.

Reading hacker news, stack overflow or even researching ideas on how to get
through the problem in what I´m building allows me to "merge" learning and
building.

It´s hard to build stuff in Erlang and learning Lisp at the same time, for
example.

Try to merge both activities in some way and you will be good.

~~~
geeko
What you're saying is similar to what I am trying to do:

Take up projects which are 60% stuff you know how to do and 40% things you'd
like to learn (the numbers are just made up, but you get the point). Even
better, get paid for learning (e.g. competition with prizes or learning in a
corporate environment)

~~~
eraad
Exactly, getting paid for learning is the sweet spot.

------
anon9182
I also work 9-5 at a big corporation. I take time to learn and keep up with
the latest developments in the programming world while I'm on the clock. This
usually amounts to an hour or so every morning reading through my RSS reader.
I've found that supervisors tend to appreciate that kind of motivation and
self improvement. I'm sure there are places that would not appreciate this
activity. You may be able to conduct this kind of self-education on the clock
anyway with no noticeable decrease in productivity. Some people will see this
as unethical, but it's likely that it will ultimately be a net win for your
employer because of your increased output as a result of the knowledge.
Otherwise, you may want to look for a different job that is more friendly to
your proactive view of education.

------
osipov
If you are working in consulting for a big corp which used to be a hardware
company, then became a services company and is now trying to be a software
company, then you need to get out of consulting. The odds are stacked against
you and chances are you'll waste your carrier being pushed around from project
to project while being treated like a number.

However, an advantage of a large company is that there are many opportunities
to do very different things. Look for job rotation opportunities. Seek out R&D
organizations and try to move there. If you are so inclined, look for
opportunities in emerging products and try to hop on board to help with
marketing, sales, or anything business related.

------
aaronblohowiak
The dedication to continual education is difficult and something that you have
to fight for. Some employers are more understanding than others. If you fail
to keep learning, your skills will be obsolete and it will be harder to find
work.

~~~
geeko
Worse if down the road, you find yourself not being able to build the stuff
you'd like to build.

Finding a job is hard. Finding your passion is much harder.

------
mahmud
I build stuff quicker, and better after taking some time off to learn.

------
Mz
I have been, in effect, "working two full time jobs" -- one for a paycheck,
and the other spending a great deal of time resolving my health problems.
Getting more efficient and healthier has gradually started providing me some
time, energy and mental focus for doing more than just getting through the
damn day. For many people in this trap, I think that general approach may be
the only way out.

------
access_denied
Let's say you absolutely want to stay in 9-5... than I would constantly
propose interesting projects inside the company. That way over time I would
work on more exciting stuff.

~~~
j_baker
Better yet, _prototype_ interesting projects. Managers love turning down
proposals. They are a bit less likely to turn down something that already has
working code, even if it's just a proof-of-concept.

~~~
geeko
Totally agree on this. I'm on it at this very moment :)

And I'm telling you, even then, convincing managers is not easier than
convincing any other investor.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
"And I'm telling you, even then, convincing managers is not easier than
convincing any other investor"

You should know your manager much better than you know your investor. If you
know someone, you should be better equipped to share your vision with them.
Then, three things can happen a) your vision is rejected because it has a flaw
you did not see b) your vision is rejected because it does not match your
manager's situation (you should put more effort in getting to know your
manager's situation!) or c) your idea is accepted. Of course, (b) is really
hard. Then again, most programmers I know don't evaluate their corporate
structures and people as thoroughly as they evaluate code.

------
mschy
1) I schedule my time rigorously. There's dedicated time allowances for every
single thing I want to do. If my time budget doesn't allow something that's
important to me, I cancel or reschedule something else.

2) I take formal classes in my areas of weakness.

3) I schedule my time rigorously.

