Every morning and afternoon, I have a routine of dropping off and picking up my youngest daughter, Vivian. I drop Vivian off in the morning before heading to my office, and pick her up from school in the afternoon, after working a day long.
As I take evening classes at the university, many of which cover new topics for me, I have to study harder to keep up with the materials being presented. The problem is that taking classes while working and taking care of the family makes it difficult to find specific study time, so I have to make do by studying in between activities.
I usually drop Vivian off at school at 6 am and arrive at the school around 6:30 am. After stopping at the mosque, I head to the Excellent Premier Serenity headquarters. The journey takes approximately 15 minutes when traffic is smooth or around 30-45 minutes if it’s a bit congested.
During the trip, I usually listen to music. Sometimes, I mix it up with religious sermons from Buya Syakur Yasin. When I had a project to learn English and improve my TOEFL score, I also learned English through YouTube videos.
After class, I learned about Business Intelligence and Voice & Image Recognition. Both are related to Machine Learning and Deep Learning. To understand Machine Learning and Deep Learning, I had to learn the basics of Data Science. I had to be hands-on or practice it using the Python programming language.
I subscribed to training packages from Codefinity and Codecademy. Then I also subscribed to Codewithmosh. To supplement it, I bought the book “Deep Learning with Python, Second Edition, François Chollet, Manning Publication.” I bought the Ebook version so that I could read it at my leisure on various devices.
The problem is that scheduling time to sit and read a book is not easy because I have to set aside a specific time. I once tried reading before bed, lying on my stomach with a pillow under me. About 10 minutes later, Vivian woke me up, and I had fallen asleep reading the ebook, hehehe…
Reading printed books or using a Kindle didn’t seem to work for me consistently, so I tried another alternative. Since I am used to watching videos and listening to sound, why not try that as well? I thought it might be challenging to concentrate because learning programming usually involves looking at coding and explanations. But after trying it, it turned out to be possible.
At that time, I tried to learn from this video:
and I could understand the data training and testing mechanism for machine learning based on audio explanations, even without looking at the sample code and without looking at the monitor screen.
Finally, I made a special schedule every day. For example, on Monday, I learned Python programming from CodeWithMosh training, and then on Tuesday, I learned Deep Learning with the Keras library and Tensorflow from the book “Deep Learning with Python, Second Edition, François Chollet.”
I subscribed to the Manning Publication service so that I could read the live book or audiobook of the “Deep Learning with Python, Second Edition” book. Manning’s live book also has the advantage of being able to read audio while shifting focus to the text being read.
I once bought the book “Atomic Habits,” but I haven’t finished reading it yet. I only got halfway through and haven’t continued yet. I find it difficult to get dedicated time to continue reading it.
After experiencing learning through audio, I finally bought the audiobook “Atomic Habits” from Amazon, which can be listened to using the Audible app.
Does driving while learning affect concentration? In my experience, it doesn’t. The eyes are still forward, the focus is still there, and only the ears are listening to the lesson.
If there is something I don’t understand, I check it in the ebook to reread it.
This pattern provides significant benefits because I can learn and balance the challenges of coursework with various new materials.
Based on my experience, maybe there are colleagues who want to try it too so that their time is effective and efficient and they can gradually improve their personal quality and life.
