- Upskilling.
The pressure to build new skills is everywhere,
but how are you supposed to do that
if you're working all day?
Hi there, I'm Sabrina from "Answer in Progress"
where we make videos,
taking people on the journey
from question to answer.
In this video,
we speak with a time management expert
and finally, make the time to learn a new skill.
Hi, there. I'm Sabrina and I'm from Answer in Progress
and I love learning.
I love it so much that I actually built
a whole business around it.
A media production company
that walks people through the process
of asking a big question and then answering it.
It's great, except sometimes I find myself
so busy running this business, answering emails,
taking meetings, whatever,
that I don't actually have much time
to learn new things - and I'm not alone.
According to the 2019 American Time Use Survey,
every day we spend about six-and-a-half hours working,
10 hours on keeping ourselves alive,
and three-and-a-half hours on personal errands.
That leaves, on average, about four hours every day
for everything else.
Hanging out with friends,
catching up on TV, and learning.
How are we supposed to work with that?
To figure it out, I spoke
with my favorite time management expert, Thomas Frank.
- Hi, I'm Thomas Frank.
I have been on the internet for a number of years.
And for the most part,
what I create is content around personal development
and organization, and productivity.
- Going into this conversation,
I thought that it took 10,000 hours to learn a new skill.
That's a lifetime of training.
Luckily, I was wrong.
- That's a question that I don't think
has a definitive answer.
A lot of people love to point
to the Malcolm Gladwell, "10,000-Hours" rule.
Some people will point to say Josh Kaufman's,
"20-Hours" rule, but it kind of,
is much more variable than that.
It's very marketable to throw a number on it,
number of hours of practice.
But it really comes down to the skill, who you are,
your own learning ability, which is somewhat innate.
And then, it's the factors and variables
that go into your practice.
All of these things kind of,
come into this formula we could create, I guess,
for how long it takes to learn a skill.
- [Sabrina] Even though learning new things
can take different times
for different skills and different people,
we tend to share one thing in common.
- So I don't know what the mathematical term
for a curve that looks like this, but essentially,
you have the "Noob Gains",
which you make in the beginning.
So you're growing by leaps and bounds.
And then as you get more into that expert area,
you start making smaller and smaller improvements over time.
- [Sabrina] So we make the most gains
within the first few hours of learning a new skill
before hitting a speed bump and our progress slows.
The cool thing is that isn't a bad thing.
Instead, it can be viewed as a milestone
where you know enough that you can recognize
your skill level is where it needs to be,
is worth more effort to improve,
or that your energy is better directed elsewhere.
But even though we don't need that much time,
how can we find it with a fully loaded schedule?
- So, a couple of things that have helped me
because I was building my blog
when I was a full-time student.
And even when I had a full-time internship,
40 hours a week, I was still building my blog.
If you can squeeze all of your actual work
into a dedicated block,
that gives you more time and more uninterrupted time
to work on your side thing.
- [Sabrina] Well, there are many ways to organize,
but the most important thing to know is that,
- Multitasking is the destroyer of results.
Your brain can't multitask, or rather, it can't multi-focus.
You can actually multitask.
I can breathe and I can talk to you right now.
I might even, if I practice enough, be able to juggle
and talk to you right now, but that's because one
of the things I'm doing has become an unconscious behavior.
You're kind of, like a single processor or single-core CPU.
A single core on your central processing unit
cannot do two things at once,
so it creates the illusion that two things
are happening at once when you multitask on your computer,
by hopping back and forth between tasks incredibly quickly.
Unfortunately, your brain can't do it very quickly.
So, you sort of incur what's called
this Cognitive Switching Penalty.
There's like this attentional residue
of the previous task that you're left
sort of, mulling over as you're trying
to sink into the new task
or it's gonna take you maybe 10, 15 minutes
to get rid of all that attentional residue
from whatever you switch to
and get back into the flow of things.
- [Sabrina] So, try to organize your schedule
to minimize the number of times you switch tasks
and avoid overlaps and multitasking.
You can also try and build the skill during work hours.
Find projects that exist in the intersection
of your current abilities and the one you want to build.
Or reach out to coworkers who have that skill.
You could make a friend in the process.
Finally, you can reassign your leisure time,
spending a little less on social media
and a little more on learning.
With that knowledge in mind,
I've finally made the time to learn a skill
I've always wanted, Digital Marketing.
I have worked in digital media for over six years now.
I can make stuff like this,
but at the start of the week,
I had no idea how to market it.
I was under the impression
that a good product can speak for itself,
but then I spent the rest
of the week learning just how wrong I was.
Now, if learning new skills like that is of interest to you,
make sure to subscribe and hit the notification bell
because this channel is all about empowering us
to level up our careers and abilities.
Let's talk about day one.
My week started off with three hours of kickoff meetings
and standups for all of the projects that I'm involved in.
Honestly, I was really tempted to start upskilling
with my mic muted and my camera off,
but then I remember, "No multitasking".
So instead, I used Primer,
Google's free bite-sized mobile learning app.
I took a Digital Marketing mini course.
The lessons are only about five minutes long,
so it's really easy to do
in between meetings or during meals.
By the end of day one,
I had spent 30 minutes skill building.
So for the next few days,
I continued to take Primer courses in between meetings.
However, I also learned that I could cram
a little bit more study time
by eating my lunch a little faster
and staying at my desk for a little bit after work.
During any longer stretches of time,
I also took free virtual workshops
using Grow with Google On Air.
By the middle of the week,
I'd already spent six hours skill building.
On Friday, I actually built the skill
into my work hours by assisting Taha.
He's in charge of our company's marketing
and growth strategy using browse optimization.
That entire process made me really appreciate
how important marketing is to the business we own together.
Like, in a world where there are dozens
of people doing what you do as well as you do it,
digital marketing is one of the only ways to stand out.
So by the end of the work week,
I had spent eight hours skill building.
Finally, it was time for the weekend.
Now, I usually start my weekends by just laying in bed
and letting the morning roll by, except for this weekend.
I decided to trade some of that leisure time for learning.
I kind of forced myself to get through hours
of skill building lessons and applications,
so that by the end of the week,
I had about 20 hours under my belt and I am exhausted.
(laughs)
In terms of knowledge and ability,
I am definitely in a better place
than I was at the start of the week.
I have a bunch of ideas on how to market my business
and I now have the skills to do it, kind of.
But with the way I'm feeling right now,
I'm kind of worried that I'm too burnt out to start.
- I guess when it comes to the speed
at which we learn skills,
it comes down to what do we need the skills for?
And how soon do we need them?
You can take a certain amount of that overwork.
You're gonna feel exhausted, but you can take it,
but what's the justification for taking that?
You have to ask yourself
"Is that actually important to me?
Am I trying to learn a skill
because I saw somebody on social media do it
and now I'm jealous of them, or I wanna be like them
or does it really matter to me?
Is it gonna make my life better?
Is it gonna make my average day better?"
- So, when it comes to making the time to learn a new skill,
it really goes back to first principles.
Why are you learning it?
Are you in a rush and have a deadline
that requires a short-term sprint?
Or can you afford to work a little slower
and potentially avoid burnout?
That is up for you to decide,
but don't burn out if you don't have to.
However, it might be useful nonetheless,
to know the following tips.
One, try and build upskilling into your pre-existing work.
Two, sacrifice a reasonable amount of leisure time.
The kind that you won't miss
if it got a little bit more productive.
And finally, three, avoid multitasking. Don't do it.
If you focus on learning, you will learn faster.
Learning while working is tough
and it can feel slow or exhausting, or honestly, both.
But just remember why you are doing it
and let that guide the pace on your journey to a new skill.
Good luck.
Have you seen the rest of this series?
We've already covered "Maximizing Career Capital"
and assessing if your job is right for you.
And next week, we are gonna be talking
about "Techniques to Effectively Build Skills".
Be sure to catch that.
Now, if you want professional training
from Google where you could learn anything
from "UX Design" to "Data Analytics" at your own pace,
be sure to check out the Google Career Certificates program.
It'll be linked in the description
alongside the other resources mentioned in this video
like, Primer and Grow with Google on Air,
but either way, have a lovely day.