We live in a world with limitless information and knowledge. Sometimes, that feels overwhelming. But taking just an hour a day helps provide compounding benefits.
I built my first website as a 12 year old. It was a simple GeoCities page, and it wasn’t customized more than a simple Microsoft Paint image background and some funny jokes about classmates.
(Some of those jokes got me in trouble!)
But the act of trying something new, overcoming the fear of the unknown, set me on a path I’m currently still enjoying.
By day, I build websites. But I also do web design, and marketing strategy, and user experience design, and… and… and….
Learning basic HTML as a young person continues to benefit me to this day.
I no longer have the time I used to, the time to explore and spend hours and hours tinkering. (My kids would eat me alive if I tried.)
But if I choose, I can take at least one hour a day to learn and improve myself.
So can you.
The Compounding Benefits of One Hour Per Day
One hour may not seem like much. But it’s more than the average person spends on self-improvement. And if you’re trying to keep your job skills up-to-date, an hour is enough to stand out.
That’s because of the principle of compounding. That’s the idea that something done once has a benefit that leads to other benefits ad infinitum – forever.
So if you take an hour per day to learn something you can use at work, or just for fun, those hours add up. The average work week has between 25-30 hours of actual productive work (maybe not even that!).
This means that after just a month of spending one hour per day, it’s like giving yourself an entire work week dedicated just to learning.
That comes out to 12 weeks per year… almost 3 months worth of full-time learning, all in one hour per day!
Imagine you had an extra 3 months every year. What would you do with that time? What would you learn? How would it change you?
How to Sneak in One Hour of PAID Learning Per Day
Here’s a secret your boss doesn’t want you to know.
No matter what your job is, you should always be improving. That means it’s your job to improve your skills… to learn.
So learn at work.
Not only does spending an hour a day learning at work make you a better employee, it’s also a smart move for your long-term career success.
(Despite the benefits of a well-educated workforce, some employers still get annoyed when employees are caught reading articles, watching educational videos, or learning skills on the job. It doesn’t make sense, and these employers should be abandoned, quickly.)
This means you shouldn’t just spend your down time at work watching more Netflix or sneaking in viral videos. You should spend at least an hour a day… on your boss’s dime… becoming better your job. There will be benefits today and in the future.
(Remember, it’s like getting an extra 3 months per year of training!)
What Should You Learn?
The magic is that there’s already a roadmap for what to learn next. In case you’ve forgotten the 5 steps:
- Set up job alerts in your field.
- Look at recent job postings and spot any skills you don’t currently have.
- Learn those skills, assuming they’ll also be relevant at your current job, too.
It’s that simple. Repeat throughout your career, and you’ll always have your pick of jobs.
Your boss right now will love the value you’re adding to the organization (just don’t remind them that they’re paying for your advancement). And your next boss will love how prepared you are.
What do you want to learn this week?