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1000 hours closer to Data Science Mastery

1000 learning hours in a year, simple effective ways to learn more Data Science every year

Data Science, Machine Learning, or the field of Artificial Intelligence is exploding with ever-expanding knowledge areas, numerous breakthroughs, and mind-boggling advancements in innovation. It is becoming complicated to manage time to keep up with the change no matter where one stands now, expert or novice. This article would be useful for anyone like:

  1. One wants to make a career switch to Data Science
  2. One who is an expert in Data Science but wants to keep his expertise up-to-date
  3. One is expert in particular areas say NLP, and want’s to move to Vision or Robotics or something different in the field of Artificial Intelligence
  4. Or maybe wants to become Senior Data Scientist from Junior Data Scientist

Whatever category you are in, you can easily find 1000 hours in a year to learn more to achieve one of the above goals. These 1000 hours do not count as your on the job learning or training that you are getting in office. This 1000 hour is exclusively your extra learning activities beyond your office business as usual hours.

So how does it work? It is simple, follow below guidelines

Split 1000 hours to a daily, weekly and monthly target

This split is nothing new; you might have heard this many times from many self-help gurus. If you have a bigger goal, split it into a smaller chunk of goals that you can effectively measure, track every day or every week. So, if we divide 1000 hours by 365 (oh yeah, it’s the number of days in a year), one gets roughly 2.74 hours. But I suggest to set the average daily target as 3 hours and set aside 30 days for a rainy day of life when you don’t feel like remaining crazy like every other day (like on vacation or a sports day with kids or just due to headache after late-night party). Rest 335 days, you have to spend on average 3 hours (how ? we will come to that later). So, 335 times three is 1005 (oh yeah 5 hours bonus). In terms of weekly target, you can set 21 hours per week (still keep this target as not every week will be the same). Similarly, the monthly goal would be approximately 90 hours.

Create a tracker for planning and tracking

Tracking is critical to check how you are doing. You need to record all learning activities like reading, watching a video, attending a course, etc. Divide these plans in group or genre, content source, media, coding number of hours, etc. as applicable to you. A spreadsheet would be the right choice so that you can generate a pivot table and summary or visuals if you need to see where is your effort going. Then you need to update every day and track weekly and monthly basis to check how is your progress. Few samples for Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Overall Yearly tracking:

Buy an ANC headphone

Since you need to utilize every bit of time effectively, I strongly recommend you to buy an ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) headphone. Bose and Sony have very effective one though a bit expensive. Just remember ANC headphones will be your best companion in this journey; thus, always keep it with you. You need to use it for watching training or a conference video or listening audiobook or Towards Data Science narrated Articles in a noisy place like a gym or while traveling on a bus, train, etc.

Travel Time is the best time

Most of us do a lot of traveling every day. Whether we are going to the office or shopping center, mostly we are traveling. Do use your headphones with your mobile to go through any video content or listen to an audiobook. If you are driving, don’t use your ANC head-phone, use a car music device for audiobook or any other less concentration needed audio content, remember life is more precious than 1000 hours of learning target).

Don’t Go to the Toilet without Your Mobile

Yes, every second count, and that includes your time in the toilet. We spend a lot of time in the bathroom. If you plan to quickly brush-up any memory-intensive activity (like going through Numpy or Tensorflow 2.0 cheat sheets), we can use this 5–10 mins effectively. We can use flashcards or tools like Anki for such quick learning.

Exercise is not just for the body it’s for the mind as well

If you do running or exercise in the gym, you can use your mobile and ANC headphone to go through some revision. Select a topic or subject that does not require too much attention, and this time is best for review. If you do regular swimming, you can get a water-resistant headphone.

Set Aside time on the weekend

If you have regular employment or school/college hours, then put aside some additional time on the weekend. Mostly it becomes challenging to achieve an average of 3 hours during weekdays, so the weekend needs to do catch-up. You can do 7–8 hours during some weekends and holidays even after spending quality time with family, friends, and community.

Include Preparation time in the tracker as well

One significant activity will be to prepare the learning material. I, as a data scientist, need to search and keep ready study material, books, and video/audio courses. The medium could be a great source (better take a paid subscription as that will open a whole world of information that is curated, enhanced, and to the specific point that you need). Use Google or another search engine to prepare learning material. For a blog or even Medium article, you can convert into PDF document (from Chrome browser use print option and save as PDF), which you can refer again, and you can also do highlight or another tracking like date in the file name, etc.

Track Your Progress Like a Sport Coach

Your performance would be as good as you can track and take corrective action. Like a Sports coach who has a keen eye on every detail of player, game, strategy, statistics, you too need to devote to track progress religiously. Never keep this for a weekend activity. Every day, follow this, update information, check if you met how the daily, weekly target, or what area needs more learning if you have set sub learning goals or objectives.

Use YouTube for free content

Whichever field you are in or want to learn, YouTube could be a great source. I cannot attend all the conferences, boot-camps, university courses physically, but using YouTube, I can do that easily. There are mind-boggling free and quality information available. Use a playlist or create one for yourself. You can use mass down-loader (search google, you will find plenty of free software to do so) for YouTube for later watch. I keep a majority of learning videos from YouTube downloaded in a proper folder structure on my mobile that I use while traveling between home and office. You can even download YouTube in mp3 format for your audio-only time.

Use Office time if you can

You can use office hours for learning as well (Don’t count official training or learning on the job as this 1000 completely extra learning hours, above and beyond your office job-related training and learning). Many organizations have specialized learning system to make their workforce manage the skill. Many subscribe to Udemy Business or Udacity or some other external or internal courses. If you have such a facility take full benefit of that. Other than that, you can always read a 5-minute Medium article on a specific topic in between stretching your hand and legs. Most of the days, 1–2 hours can come from office time itself. Use lunch break, don’t just sit and gossip (many think it as networking).

Social Media is not for targeted learning

Yes, social media contains much information (most of them are useless for the specific goal that you have set). These are good for relaxation or entertainment but mostly don’t have any value as these are not focused on learning. Better utilize this time (don’t agree with me …its okay, I mean at-least cut down and divert that time to learn or do a quick flashcard revision)

Maths behind 1000 hours

Here I am showing a few daily sample numbers. Here are a few samples which show how one can achieve 3 hours. Everyone has a different situation; thus, you need to figure out what works for you.

Final Note

This article is not just theory or gimmick; I have personally achieved more than 1000 hours per year consistently for the last few years. I am 40 plus with two growing kids at home. If I can do this, why not you? It may not be the same recipe or formula. You need to customize according to your commitment, lifestyle, and situation. If you think 1000 hours is too much, then start with 500 hours and adjust based on your progress. Once again preparation and tracking are keys to success, don’t forget small breaks (remember every drop counts), never forget your ANC headphone.

I am tempted now to share a very famous motivational quote from Epictetus that was made even more popular by Ryan Holiday in his book "Obstacle is the way."

"Persist and resist". Persist in your efforts. Resist giving into distraction, discouragement, and disorder. "

So as long as you practice "Persist and resist", you can achieve 1000 hours or even more to make a significant change in your pursuit of the Data Science journey.

Thanks for reading. You can connect me at @LinkedIn .


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