How to Find Time to Up Your Skills

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Let Me Help You

Hey, busy individual. How’s it going? Think you’re too busy to learn more? I’ve got news for you: you’re slipping. You’re not using your motivated head to its full potential. I know you’ve got tunnel vision right now and you really know where you’re heading with what you’ve got going on, but I need you to take a little break. I mean it when I say it’s a little break too. It’s time to get your skills up and you absolutely need to find time to do it.

I hear you. You say that you’ve got too much going on andthat it’s not the right time to do it, but you’re just wrong about it. I’m going to help you fix it, because I know you’re not going to do anything unlessI give you some action points.

As a relatable reference point, I’ll share that in 2018, I decided that I needed to be much better at Facebook advertising, both by spending more on there and by learning from experts. In order to do so, these were the steps I made.

Focus on What You Need

There so much that you can learn about, so you need to figure out what specifically would benefit you most. It’s not good just going and doing something because it’s trendy or you have a little intrigue. For this, you need to know that it’s going to have a significant impact on your business/side projects in the future. Take a few notes of rough topics and then drill on down to the specifics of what you need to know. For instance, if you want to learn more about analytics, then you should focus on the required key skills for a data scientist.

Once you have that, spend some time figuring out the best way to acquire this information. Is it via YouTube videos? A course? A book? Perhaps there’s a podcast that suits your needs? If you know how you learn best, find the best source of that information for you.

Make a Schedule

What you’re going to do is map out how you’re going to become proficient at whatever skill you’re trying to develop. It may help to have a goal date to have everything complete, or it may be better to just know how many times per week you’re going to get your head down and learn.

I love planning ahead. It’s the only way I get anythingdone. I absolutely overdo it with my Trello boards, but it’s only do I have something to focus on each day. Use whatever tools suit you best to keep on top of your learning schedule. It may be a Google Calendar, an actual calendar or the tool I use – Trello. It may develop and require amendments over time, but make sure you have a strong foundation to work from.

Cut Everything Else Out

I mean everything. There is always something I could be doing for one of my ecommerce business, for one of my blogs, or one of my other projects. I could always say that behind in some way with each of them. But thetruth is that the pressure is only ever coming from myself. It’s just an excuse. I can park that pressure for another time. I can always find an hour somewhere in my day to get away from everything else and learn. When I worked a full-time job, lunch breaks and commutes fit that description.

I overloaded with things in 2017 (with a new baby, this blog, and a mission to make Amazon selling replace my 9-to-5), yet I still found time to sneak in a little education to help me improve at what I was doing and get closer to my goals. Once you accept that learning is just part of your schedule, it makes it so much easier to slot it into your life.