What you are learning would have to be software development related and the end goal would be to become an expert. At the end of the week you would have to have something to show how you spent your time. This question isn't about what tech you would learn, but more so how you would maximize your time spent to become and expert as soon as possible.
<p><pre><code> 6:00 am - wakeup
6:10 am - jog
6:30 am - nutritious breakfast including fruit, carbs, protein and water
7:00 am - shower
7:30 am - coffee (limited) and classical music
8:00 am - review learning list and choose focus
8:30 am - focus and learn
10:00 am - stretching, situps, pushups followed by water
10:15 am - focus and learn
11:45 am - evaluate learning, update learning list
noon - nutritious lunch (limited) with water
12:30 pm - bike ride
1:00 pm - review learning list and choose focus
1:30 pm - focus and learn
3:00 pm - weightlifting followed by water
3:30 pm - focus and learn
5:00 pm - evaluate learning, update learning list
5:30 pm - dinner (limited)
6:00 pm - your time
9:00 pm - bedtime
</code></pre>
When I was unemployed, this is the routine I followed. I was able to pick up quite a few technologies that helped me in my current job. Notice that quite a bit of the routine is focused on YOU. If you feel good, and confident about yourself, you can learn a lot.
Like most situations, you will get the wrong answer until you find the right way to ask the question. If the goal is to maximize time spent, then what you have to do is learn how your body works. And your body works in a certain way, you just have to comply. If you fight it, you will get worse results. I'm saying all this because from the question one might believe that you can -choose- your routine. What I've found is that you have to discover it, you have to discover how your body works.<p>Wake up with the Sun.<p>Eat.<p>Internet 1 hour, or other activity that will warm up your brain. (~8:30 am in the summer)<p>Learn, 2-3 hours for real, maximum 4 hours for the whole activity.<p>Gym 1 hour.<p>Shower.<p>Eat.<p>Go outside.<p>Eat, before 18:00 ideally, before 19:00 in practice. Food will keep you awake during the night and you won't be able to wake up with the Sun!<p>Sleep (~23:00, ~8 hours). You have to choose your bed time depending on when the Sun rises.<p>Source: 5 years of searching for this + 2 years of doing this, without being paid :|
I would divide my moments into<p>1. meta learning<p>2. learning from multi perspectives<p>3. retention<p>Meta Learning<p>Ask yourself, "why are you learning this?", "what pre-knowledge I need to learn this material?", "Is there anyway to learn this faster?", "Why am I getting stuck on this?", "Do i need to update a previous assumption?". Metacognition, or the awareness of own thinking, is a very powerful method to improve thinking skill on any domain.<p>Learning<p>Use The Feynman Technique. The idea is any jargon used in particular domain can expressed with more common day to day words. This not the same as using analogy, avoid analogies. In feynman technique you are thinking below the word, using more simpler word to describe things. Once you have understood an idea, then subscribe to the jargon for that idea.
Another way is to build a semantic tree of the things you learn, essentially build a huge graph where ideas are connected. Dont make disconnected clusters of ideas.<p>Retention<p>You can learn as much as you want but there is no point if you remember nothing.
Use a mind map, reorganize according to your work. Just because a book has its own index, doesnt mean you can't reorganize the information according to your thoughts.
Bookmark high quality links and resource, ditch meager resouces/links.
Write code, practice what you have learned!
Teach others! Teaching is the most effective retention method, because it challenges your own understanding.<p>Edit:
Your prove of learning can be shown using everything you use to retain the knowledge.
Here is my suggestion: Learn how to learn<p>Find what techniques work for you - keep on trying different methods.
GTD by Pomodoro or Task Tracking
Learn by reading, videos, doing, instructing others
Vary intensity: some days are 10 hours of studying, while some are dreaming days<p>I would LOVE to be able to spend more time learning - I have a website about NoSQL that I want to train on BigData, but I am always too busy working
- take on aggressive project. a distributed operating system, a novel static optimization technique, some kind of concurrency model, a lower bound for an unsolved problem<p>- find good resources to work with, or at least to give regular input so I don't end up wandering off into the weeds<p>- try to take it as far as I can, until its obviously going to fail<p>- start with another
Cool question and some great answers.<p>I would try the following:<p>- 8-9 hours of sleep per day;<p>- 1 hour of some physical activity everyday;<p>- 7/8 meals through out the day (3-to-3 hours interval);<p>- 8 pomodoro sprints per day.Each pomodoro sprint as a 45 minutes focus session. While studying focus on the process not the result. This reduces anxiety;<p>- at the end of every day: make a brief self-assessment session, writing a paragraph about what you have accomplished. Now the focus is on the result.<p>- use Rescue Time to track what you do, be aware of the distractions and try to limit them;<p>- do not work on Sundays. Work on Saturdays as a regular day.
I would first tackle the mindset needed for peak learning.<p>Josh Waitzkin has some good coverage in his book The Art of Learning.<p>How to Solve it by Polya has some good strategies on how to solve math problems that are applicable to broader problems and learning.<p>Thinking as a Science by Henry Hazlitt covers a broad approach to learning anything.<p>I would probably read these books and try to find a few others to really get my mind in a state where it needs to be to learn.
I'd follow the advice from this guy who finished four years of MIT CS classes in one year: <a href="http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/10/26/mastering-linear-algebra-in-10-days-astounding-experiments-in-ultra-learning/" rel="nofollow">http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/10/26/mastering-linear-algeb...</a>
It sounds like the users are being paid to produce proof of learning weekly, not learn.<p>So probably: Plagiarize a bunch of stuff, sign up with a bunch of names/get unemployed crusty friends to make class presentations, and milk it for money as long as possible.
> how you would maximize your time spent...<p>I would try to have 1:1 (paid) consulting sessions with established experts in the field. Huge insights and breakthroughs come from individual conversations.
In learning mode as an adult you should really spend 12-14 hours a day thinking and tinkering, 2-3 months max. It has to be both a challenge and a boost.