如何在全职工作中坚持学习How I Study ConsistentlyWith A Full-Time job

How I Study Consistently With A Full-Time job

Two years ago I had a bad habit of waking up late for work. Every morning was the same – I’d start my shift, do the work, and count the hours until I could sign off. In the evenings, I played video games. The next day, the cycle would repeat. Nowdays I still play a lot of video games but I also wake up early and study or write every day before my 9-5 starts. My behaviors changed which led to a new job with a 40% pay raise and moving into an apartment that I didn’t have to share with strangers. Life didn’t get easier, it got busier, but in the best way possible. I’m going to use video games as an analogy for how I study consistently because thinking this way makes studying fun. Hopefully what I share will help you too.

两年前，我有个坏习惯，上班总是起得很晚。每天早上都一样——我开始上班，干完活，然后数着时间盼着下班。晚上我就玩电子游戏。第二天，这个循环又会重演。如今我仍然玩很多电子游戏，但每天在朝九晚五的工作开始前，我也会早起学习或写作。我的行为发生了改变，这让我得到了一份薪水上涨40%的新工作，还搬进了一套不用和陌生人合租的公寓。生活并没有变得轻松，而是更忙碌了，但这是最好的那种忙碌。我打算用电子游戏来打个比方，说明我是如何持续学习的，因为这样想能让学习变得有趣。希望我分享的内容也能对你有所帮助。

Selecting a Goal

设定目标

In most video games we have a main mission or quest and level up along the way. We also have side quests. As we play through them, we improve and unlock new skills. This makes it easier to progress through the game. The main quest is like our goal. Our side quests are like the milestones we reach on the journey towards our main goal. When we complete side quests we’re rewarded with new skills and perks. They provide another hit of dopamine and keep us engaged.

在大多数电子游戏中，我们都有一个主要任务或使命，并且在游戏中不断升级。我们还有支线任务。在完成这些任务的过程中，我们能够提升能力并解锁新技能。这有助于我们在游戏中更顺利地推进。主线任务就像是我们的目标。而支线任务就像是我们朝着主要目标前进途中所达成的阶段性目标。完成支线任务后，我们会获得新技能和额外奖励。它们会再次释放多巴胺，让我们保持投入。

Last year, my goal was to become a cloud engineer. The only way to get the outcome I wanted was to learn new skills and apply them to the kind of project a cloud engineer would do. The subgoals were the stages of the project, such as learning programming, APIs, and databases to name a few. Whenever I learned something new and applied it, I unlocked a new skill. What are your own goals?

去年，我的目标是成为一名云工程师。要达成我想要的结果，唯一的办法就是学习新技能，并将其运用到云工程师会做的那种项目中。子目标就是项目的各个阶段，比如学习编程、应用程序编程接口(API)和数据库等等。每当我学到新东西并加以运用时，我就掌握了一项新技能。那么，你的目标是什么呢?

Getting Triggered

激活触发

When we fail or die in that addictive game we’re playing, it can be triggering. It makes us want to rage quit. But it also makes us want to try again, because we know we can do better. It’s not motivation that keeps us playing. It’s because the game is pushing our buttons. We hate to lose. So we keep trying until we succeed. Sharing a house with 5 strangers was enough to keep me in a constant state of being triggered. I didn’t want to schedule time to cook because the kitchen was often overcrowded. Or check if the living room was empty so I could chill with my date. Every time I thought about earning more money to afford my own apartment, it pushed my buttons. It reminded me to go study so I could earn more money and leave.

在那些让人欲罢不能的游戏中，失败或“阵亡”常常会触发我们的情绪。我们可能会气到想“rage quit”(愤怒退游)，但同时也会激起我们的斗志，我们知道自己可以做得更好。促使我们继续尝试的并不是单纯的动力，而是游戏触动了我们的“按钮”。我们讨厌失败，于是一次次尝试，直到成功为止。对于我来说，与五个陌生人合租已经足够让我处于一种“被触发”的状态：比如，想做饭时发现厨房总是太挤；想和约会对象一起放松时，客厅却被占用了。每次我想到自己需要更多收入来搬进属于自己的公寓，这种不满都会提醒我：去学习吧，去赚更多的钱，离开这种生活!

Escape the Noise

远离干扰

Before developing my new habits, I had just moved to a new town. I didn’t know anyone. This gave me a lot of time to reflect on my plans for the future. Some might have found it lonely but I saw it as an opportunity to pursue my goals without distraction. Because I was often alone, boredom took over. It allowed me to focus and it became my greatest ally. My rituals changed. I went from playing video games late into the night to going to bed early so I could study and hit the gym before my work shift began.

在养成新习惯之前，我刚搬到一个新城市。当时，我谁都不认识。这让我有很多时间思考未来的计划。对于一些人来说，这种状态可能显得孤独，但对我而言，这是一种没有干扰的好机会，可以专注于自己的目标。独处让我感到无聊，但这种无聊反而成为了我的最佳盟友，让我更加专注。我的生活习惯发生了改变：从熬夜玩游戏变成了早睡早起，在工作前学习和健身。

Shifting Your Perspective

转变心态

Working full-time makes it challenging to study. We get home from work, sink into the couch, open our favorite social app, and try to distract ourselves from the responsibilities of life. We know these habits won’t bring us any closer to our goal, but we’ve had a long day at work so it feels like we deserve this time to unwind. The truth is, no amount of self-help advice will cure this type of mindset. This is the part where we have to make the daily decision to get up, sit in that chair, and study. But there are things we can do to become more disciplined. To develop the habit of studying, I began to use a time-blocking app.

全职工作让学习变得充满挑战。下班回家，我们瘫在沙发上，打开最喜欢的社交应用，试图从生活的责任中逃离。我们明知道这些习惯无法帮助自己实现目标，但总觉得工作了一天应该“犒劳”自己一下。然而，事实是再多的自我激励书籍也无法改变这种心态。我们必须每天都做出决定：起身，坐下，开始学习。当然，我们也可以通过一些方法来提高自律性。为了养成学习的习惯，我开始使用时间管理应用。

I time-blocked my whole morning- wake up at 6 AM, shower for 15 minutes, brush my teeth for 5, etc… At some point, I would fit a 45-60 minute study session into this schedule. Recently, I’ve also started using James Clear’s Atomic Habits app to work towards my goal of writing online.

我会对早晨的每一分钟进行规划：6点起床，15分钟洗澡，5分钟刷牙……在某个时间段，我会安排一场45到60分钟的学习。最近，我还开始使用 James Clear 的《原子习惯》应用，帮助我实现在线写作的目标。

Measure Your Progress

衡量进度

Tracking my progress over time reminded me that I was leveling up. It was a way to battle the days that I felt deflated, that felt like I was making no progress, that felt like everything I was studying was leaving my brain faster than it entered. In video games, we see our progress in the form of skill points and unlocked perks. So finding a way to measure my progress in my studies felt equally useful. It was visual feedback that reminded me how far I was from achieving my goal. It reminded me that I’m improving, reducing the risk of giving up. Using the Notion app, I documented every new skill I learned toward becoming a cloud engineer. I compared everything I learned to the ‘requirements’ and the ‘nice to have’ sections of job descriptions until I had covered everything needed.

跟踪自己的进步让我感觉像是在“升级”。这是一种对抗挫败感的方式——在那些感到疲惫的日子，在那些觉得没有任何进展的日子，在那些感觉自己学过的东西瞬间就忘了的日子。在电子游戏中，我们通过技能点数和解锁的奖励来查看进度。为学习找到一种记录进度的方法同样重要。它是一种视觉反馈，提醒我离目标还有多远，也告诉自己正在不断进步，从而降低放弃的风险。我用Notion记录了学习云工程所需的每一项技能，并与职位描述中的“必备要求”和“加分项”进行对比，直到掌握了所有必要技能。

Final Comments

最后的感想

Gamification is a big part of what helps me to consistently learn new things. Even with a full-time job. Tracking goals, measuring progress, and blocking out time makes things so much easier. Figuring out our goals isn’t always easy. Sometimes we have to sit with our thoughts for a while to figure out what we want. But when we discover our goal, developing these positive habits makes it so much easier to achieve the outcome we want.

“游戏化”是帮助我在全职工作中坚持学习的重要方法。设定目标、记录进度、合理安排时间，这些都让学习变得更加轻松。当然，找到目标并不容易。我们可能需要静下心来与自己的想法“对话”一段时间，才能明确自己真正想要的是什么。但一旦发现了目标，养成这些积极的习惯会让实现目标的过程变得简单而高效。