Learning new skills is important, and I love to do it, but I never really had a structure to it before.
I've found some information from Darren Hardy's Darren Daily's and I'm going to follow it, and of course blog the whole thing here.
Focusing on one thing per three months (quarter of a year) is doable for me considering I also have a full-time job.
My job does allow me quite a bit of learning time, as well as a budget for purchasing learning materials.
But, the things I want to learn don't always align with the day job, and I don't want to use day job time or money to learn things that won't benefit them.
So, sometimes I will be able to work on them during the work week and other times they will have to be handled outside the hours of "9-5".
The first part of this structure/framework is...
Darren’s 1-1-3-5-1-30-30-5 Plan
- Define Number 1 Goal
- Define Number 1 skill important to achieving Number 1 Goal
- 1 Skill development plan per quarter
- Identify the best 5 books on that skill
- 3 audiobooks or podcasts
- 1 comprehensive training program
- 5 days a week, for 30 minutes, read the books (approximately 30 pages)
- 5 days a week, for 30 minutes, listen to the audio (doing during NET time – no extra time)
Number One Goal
My number one goal for this quarter is to redesign and build a WordPress theme for AIBD.org, NCBDC.com, and ResidentialDesignAwards.com.
The theme needs to be lightweight and cohesive between all three sites, as they are owned by the same brand (AIBD).
Number One Skill
The number one skill is web design, and I can focus on that for one quarter.
Five Books
I've picked up a lot of books on this stuff over the years, mostly through Humble Bundle, so this should be easy.
I just need to dig through the 9001 files in my Humble Bundle Archive folder...
...Hmm yeah so there are a lot of books in here. I don't know if it would disappoint Darren but I won't be going through and looking up every single one of these to figure out which are the "best five".
I'm just going to pick five I think look/sound good.
- Design for Hackers
- The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
- Type on Screen: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Developers, and Students
- Above the Fold
- Don't Make Me Think
Okay, I did a little research here. A very small amount.
Like I said, I have a lot of books. I'll get to some of the others eventually. These are the necessary ones for now.
There's also a sixth book I'm reading now, Real Artists Don't Starve by Jeff Goins, which is part of re-launching my "No Alarms Club" podcast (more about that in the future).
Three Podcasts
Since web design is a visual art, it's tough to find podcasts that talk about the design.
There are plenty of web design podcasts but they tend to talk about the business of design.
I settled on these three:
- Shop Talk
- HTML All The Things
- The Subscription Web Design Podcast
One Comprehensive Training Program
Conveniently, there was a Humble Bundle for "Comprehensive UX + Web Design Mastery" via Team Treehouse, so I grabbed that and it will be the course I work through.
I'll also need to learn WP Theme development, but I have a Udemy course already for that. Plus, I'll be using Blocs which does a lot of the heavy lifting for me.
Moving Forward
Next, I need to schedule out the hour per day I will spend learning.
Since this is day job related, I can spend time on the clock working on it.
Mornings are usually pretty slow mentally, so I figure that's the best time for learning.
Then there's what Darren refers to as your NET – No Extra Time. That's stuff like washing dishes and other chores, or taking a shower. Perfect for podcasts.
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