Time Blocking Between Work

It’s been almost three months since I started freeCodeCamp’s front-end development course. That was the same time I decided that I was going to become a web developer. Starting late in June, I was off on summer break giving me plentiful free time to learn web development day in and day out. I’ve put in 100+ hours of work in the course and are now just two projects away from receiving my front-end certificate. If I had one more full week off, I would guarantee it would be completed before the end of the summer.
Summer break ends today. All teachers report to work tomorrow. My full days of free time are no longer.

In Gary Keller’s book “The ONE Thing” he talks about the importance of time blocking and lists these four points as the most important ideals behind time blocking. I can say that with the entire summer off of work, time blocking wasn’t one of my strong points. I had so much time that I took it for granted and would sit down to work whenever I got to it for the day. The hours were always pretty consistent (3–4 hours at a time on a regular basis) but the start time would change almost daily. It worked for me over summer break, but with school back in session that’s got to change.
Time blocking is going to be of the utmost importance for my development as a web developer. No longer will I get to leisurely decide when I’ll start working. At this point, I need to make time and protect it on a daily basis to get this work done…but when?
Some would say to wake up early before work to maybe get an hour of work in. Teachers don’t have to be in school until 7:30 anyways. For me, I’m at my desk at 6:45. I prefer to get all my work done before school rather than staying late. While 6:45 still isn’t too early, I regularly wake up at 4:30 to go to the gym before work because, again, when I leave work I don’t want to have anything left on my to-do list for the day. The morning is out of the question.
What about late night? If I have everything done on my to-do list I could work at night when I’m home. While it makes sense, I do love spending time with my fiance and when we are both done eating dinner together, it’s usually about 6:30–7PM and just about two hours left in our night. We both head to bed around 9:00PM to try to get enough sleep to be semi-alive when the alarm goes off at 4:30 for the gym. Along with early mornings, later at night is a no-go as well.
Thinking about working this summer and figuring out what worked best for me, it was easy to see where and when I was most successful. As a self-taught programmer you have to be willing to work from home because there are no official classes or meetups. I found more often than not when I left my house I got the most work done. Why not stick with that even when school is in session?
While I don’t have a 4-hour period to block off to do my work, I can give an hour a day for sure. Since I can’t do it early in the morning, choose not to do it late at night before going to sleep and would prefer to not be home, there’s only one time I can do it: at school!
I’m not talking about during the school day. There’s too much lesson planning, correcting and other teacher responsibilities to take care of. But with my daily tasks and responsibilities done at 3:00 and nobody there to bother me, I’ve made the decision to block off an hour a day — from 3:00–4:00PM — dedicated to my web development education. I’m going to protect it as much as possible and stick with it. I have to or else I’ll fall behind my own timeline.
When there are goals you want to reach and hurdles put in your way you need to find ways to clear those hurdles while also juggling the rest of your responsibilities. Learning web development full time would be the ideal situation but with bills that need to be paid I can’t make that type of commitment. That’s not going to stop me from doing whatever it takes to reach my goals and realize my dream.
