Learn how to balance work and learning – Freelancing

Achieving work-life balance Work-Life Balance Is the new trend in the past few years, everyone talks about its importance in order to have a happier life, but what about the balance between work, learning and skills development?

I don’t know why no one talks about the difficulty of balancing work and learning Although it is one of the biggest problems that many freelancers and those who work in the creative industry suffer from, they are the ones who need to develop their skills in their field of work without stopping working.

Personally, I have been suffering from this problem for a long time, and I was very surprised when I was searching for a solution to it, and I did not find a single book or article that even talked about this matter!

So I took it upon myself to find this solution myself, and I did many experiments until I came up with a great way that helped me get rid of that problem. I called it “Work-Learning Balance Plan 5511”.

But before you know what this plan is and how you can apply it to be able to achieve a balance between work and learning, let’s talk about the problem a little bit first.

The problem of difficulty balancing work and learning and its impact on your productivity

The difficulty of achieving a balance between work and learning is a problem faced by those who work in the creative field in particular, and those who work in areas that require continuous development of their skills while maintaining their productivity. If you are a freelancer, then you certainly know what this means.

The problem is that you may find yourself spending a lot of time learning and following training courses and lessons, reading articles and books, and even getting inspired and communicating with those who are more experienced than you in your field of work, then you stop completely and start working a lot according to what you learned, then get busy with work and forget completely You are supposed to learn more.

Then after that you feel that you still lack a lot of knowledge to be able to perform your work better, so you start to feel a lack of confidence in your abilities, and then you tend to either immerse yourself in work, achieving less productivity and a greater sense of guilt and lack of confidence, or repeating that ball again!

Perhaps those who are most vulnerable to this problem and affected by it are the beginners, because their need to learn is greater than their need to work, and their knowledge at that stage may not help them to work stably. That feeling of lack of confidence may lead them to think that they will never succeed, so they stop working and forget. What they learn and start the same journey in another field.

If you have gone through that experience, let me first tell you that you are not alone, I also went through that experience and I know that many of those reading this article have gone through a similar experience as well.

And if you have not gone through that experience before, this is actually more dangerous, because you may think that learning is only what you need at the beginning, and when you start working, you will not need to continue learning.

It is a bigger mistake that many freelancers make as well. Learning is the main driver of work and it is also a work that never endsThere is always something new to learn, even if you are the best at doing it. Don’t fall prey to the illusion of knowledge and think you know everything.

Before you continue, pause for a moment to ask yourself, When was the last time you read a book in your field? Or participated in a training course or workshop? What was the last lesson you learned?

If you have difficulty answering these questions, then you need to complete reading this article, but if you do not have a problem answering these questions, ask yourself another question, Was this an obstacle for you to become more productive? If the answer is no, then you are a lucky person! As for the rest of us we really need to balance work and learning.

I think you know what that problem means and how it affects your productivity, so let’s start talking about the solution, I’m going to tell you exactly what I did to balance work, learning and developing my skills while doing my job continuously, and how you can do it too.

What is the work-learning balance plan 5511?

Previous experiences made me realize the difficulty of balancing work and learning and that I need a positive routine that helps me solve this problem. After I did many experiments, I finally came up with a wonderful plan that I called Work-learning balance plan 5511.

The point of plan Work-learning balance 5511 It is not to let your work habits make you work more without learning more, and not the other way around, and thus become more productive, as I indicated in the previous article.

This requires a clear and measurable plan that helps you achieve a balance between work and learning and developing your skills to increase your productivity, as well as preventing you from spending all your time at work without paying attention to developing your knowledge and skills.

The plan is that every month you have to read a book, finish a course, read 5 articles, and watch 5 TEDTalks. TEDTalks.

Indeed, I used to make a list containing those things at the beginning of each month and distribute them evenly throughout the month in a variety of ways and at close intervals, and I made sure to finish them at the end of each month, and I recently transferred that list to Notion, which helped me a lot in arranging and updating it monthly easily And quick, the previous picture is a picture of my list for this month.

You also created a custom template in Notion I named him 1155 Work-Learning Balance Plan By clicking on this link, you will be able to add the template to your list directly and use it by pressing Duplicate After opening the previous link, you can immediately start adding what you want to do without the need to create it again.

Well now that you know what it is Work-learning balance plan 5511 And how it was specifically designed to make it easier for you to balance work and learning, and you’ve added the template to your to-do lists Notion It remains only to learn a little about how to use this plan to get the most out of it.

How to use the Work-Learning Balance Plan 5511

In order to use this plan correctly, you must know that it is specially designed to create a balance between work and continuous learning so that you do not work more than you learn, nor vice versa either, so its initial image is 5511.

What I want you to do is to become more flexible in your use of that plan, if you are someone who does not like to read, for example, you can replace the book with another course, and if watching TED talks TEDTalks It doesn’t mean much to you, so you can replace it by watching a quick tutorial Tutorials What you want to do or learn.

Also, will it take more than a month to finish the book? decent! Is one course not enough for you per month? It’s okay to add another one – but don’t be hard on yourself – remember that in that plan you are in complete control of your educational and work habits, but always remember that its goal is to achieve a balance between work and learning.

Also, you must adjust the percentages according to the nature of your work. If you work a lot, I advise you to increase those percentages a little, such as reading two books instead of one, or watching two training courses instead of one.

In order for this matter to help you work less, and gain more knowledge and experience that will help you work better, which you would not have gained if you worked all the time, which I told you about in the previous article.

This is what I do personally, so you will see that my list for this month contains two training courses, one that takes 36 minutes and the other 58 minutes, which means 6-10 hours after applying the contents of the two courses after distributing them to the days of the month, and this is because I need to acquire these two skills at the present time.

I know that each person has his own circumstances, as well as his preferred way of working and learning, and certainly there is no rule that can be applied to everyone alike, in their different work and life circumstances, and for this I say that most of what you will read about the balance between work and life is theoretical talk only, and I did not create that Plan to be!

That is why I advise you to be more flexible in dealing with this plan, as it may become 1111 or even 5555 It is entirely up to you, according to your current circumstances and how much work you do.

Remember that this plan isn’t created to fit everyone, so be flexible. You can change the numbers according to your circumstances, needs and abilities as well.

For me, I determine these numbers every month according to my goals and capabilities as well, but in any case I make sure that they help me reach what I call the golden ratio, which is work 50% and learn 50% Because that’s what makes me more productive when I’m working and more knowledgeable when I’m not.

Now just one last thing to know before you start using this plan (if you choose to), which is to know what makes you need to balance work and learning? I mean aside from all of the issues you talked about with this, what would really motivate you to try this plan or even think of your own way of creating that balance?

Why you need the Work-Learning Balance Plan 5511

The main reason you seek to balance between work and learning is that you do this in order to work less, and then gain more knowledge, experiences, and skills that will enable you to become more productive when you return to work again.

I say this so that you realize its importance when you determine what you will learn each month, and what you will do as well. You must carefully choose what you will learn each month to serve your current and future goals as well, and not just to get away from work a little.

Determining a specific number of what you will learn will make you more comfortable about starting to learn because you know exactly where you will start and where you will end, which will make the idea of ​​starting to learn easier and more enjoyable because you follow your progress every time, which means more dopamine.

Also, this will make you think a lot before adding any article or training course to your list every month, so you will choose carefully because the matter has become limited now, which will lead you to think analytically about the information you will be exposed to and you will not only become a recipient of the information, you are required to get more as much knowledge as possible in the allotted time.

I am not saying that you should fully adhere to this plan or list. For example, I use a lot of my spare time watching documentaries, or listening to many different podcasts, from which I learn a lot and do not add them to the list, and I also read many other articles without the need. to be added.

This is completely normal because after two or more months of applying that plan, you will have a positive routine around it and you will find yourself balancing work and learning without having to even rely on the plan!

Because after that period, you will discover that this plan was more like the extra wheels that you install on your bike so that you can walk on it without the need for those extra wheels.

I hesitated a lot before telling you this matter and I was hoping to let you discover it on your own, but I decided to tell you so that you do not think that if you stop using this plan, then you have violated the laws of balance between work and learning! No it’s not, you just would have naturally acquired that skill. (congratulations in advance)

But this does not mean that you should stop using it as well. With my knowledge of this matter, and although I have achieved a balance between work and learning without the need for that plan, I am keen to use it as a tool that prompts me to constantly search for training courses, articles and content of better quality, and also to remind myself This is always the case.

Conclusion

Thus, I have shared with you the method that I rely on in achieving a balance between work and learning, which makes me more productive by working less as well. I hope that you find it useful and that you always try new tricks and methods that help you increase your productivity as well.

Although I have been relying on this plan for more than a year and a half, I have only shared it with a few people, so I don’t know whether it will work with a larger number or not, so I want your help in knowing this matter.

If you are excited to apply Work-learning balance plan 5511 And you think applying it will help you work less and be more productive at the same time, why don’t you send me an email that you’re going to implement it, and I’ll be happy to contact you to see how it goes by the end of next month?

Tell us, do you have problems balancing work and learning? And do you think that plan is what you need to be able to solve this problem? Share your opinion in the comments