How to fit learning into your life: 3 tips from an online learner

😮💨Pssst–do you speak in “to-do list” too? 

For many of us, there’s no shortage of things to do: drop off the kids, attend that big meeting, catch up on client emails, reserve a restaurant for our anniversary (🎂May 27th), take the cat to the vet. Oh, shoot, and ya’ gotta get a couple of lemons for dinner tonight, too! 

Faced with so much to do already, many wonder how they can add “learn a new skill” or “complete a degree” to their already overgrown task list. Is it actually possible? (Hint: yes, it is!)

In today’s issue of Career Chat, we’re highlighting some learning tips from Marc Seter, a civil engineer pursuing a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Marc has found some truly creative and insightful ways to balance his work, life, and learning as he’s pursued his master’s degree on Coursera. He’s a real inspiration, and one that most of us can learn a thing or two from.    

Here are three tips directly from Marc on fitting learning into your life: 

But, first–are you feeling overwhelmed by the unique challenges of modern parenting? If so, consider enrolling in Yale University’s free online course, The Science of Well-Being for Parents, to explore strategies for time management, dealing with tough feelings, and navigating your child’s academic stress and screen time.   

🏊#1. Weave learning into your daily routines. 

Every day, Marc takes a 90-minute swim in the pool, but rather than counting his laps, he listens to audio lectures or has Siri read his textbooks aloud to him. For Marc, it’s all about making the most of his time by finding ways to weave his learning into his daily routines—even if it requires some creative problem-solving. 

“If there [are] ever readings from a textbook, I’ll buy [two] copies. I’ll take one of them, remove the spine with a miter saw, and run the whole textbook through my scanner and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) it. Then turn that into text that Siri can read to me while I’m in the swimming pool.” 

Marc even went so far as to teach Siri the Greek alphabet and mathematical symbols, so that he could have the virtual assistant read equations from his textbooks during his swims. “That’s my study time. And I feel like I’m rocking and rolling on my curriculum now,” he said. 

🔨#2. Apply your learning to reinforce it. 

When we’re deep in study, it can be easy to overlook that our learning actually does have real-world applications. That’s, in part, why Marc makes a habit of applying what he’s learned as soon as possible. In fact, he’s even used some of what he learned in one of his courses to optimize an algorithm for financial transactions at his workplace. 

“I applied some dynamic programming techniques to accelerate one of the algorithms we have,” he explained. “That was a direct takeaway from my coursework.”

By taking his learning and finding ways to use it at work, Marc simultaneously reinforces it while demonstrating its impact in the workplace–a big win. 

🤸#3. Flexibility and mistakes are your friends.

Marc’s busy life means his schedule is packed with family and career responsibilities, along with numerous hobbies. As a result, he’s learned to value flexible learning, which allows him to study at his own pace. “There are times when everything’s going great, and I’m moving really fast. And then there are other times when, for whatever reason, I need to slow down a bit. That for me is just absolutely huge,” he explained. 

At the same time, rather than letting wrong answers get him down, Marc has turned his stumbles into learning opportunities. He’s particularly found the periodic quizzes in his course to be some of the most educational parts of his program. 

“One of the things that I really love is the quizzes and the assignments. I feel like I learn more when I make a mistake than when I just get it right the first time,” he said. 

🧑💻Learn more with these courses

Learning is critical to long-term personal and professional growth. Explore ways to fit learning into your life with these popular programs on Coursera: 

To get the most out of online learning, try McMaster University’s Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential course. 

For strategies to manage your family life, enroll in Yale’s The Science of Well-Being for Parents course. 

For an overview of expert-backed learning techniques, consider Deep Teaching Solutions’ Learning How to Learn course

Finally, to work toward your own CS degree, explore the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Master of Science in Computer Science program. 

That’s it for this week, folks! Before you head off to finish up your next to-do, consider letting us know any strategies you use to fit learning into your life in the comment section below. We know you all have some great tips and tricks up your sleeves!

Have a career question you’d like us to answer next? Share it below. And, as always, we welcome YOUR advice and experience in the comments.