If you haven't started yet, here is an inspiring experience that greatly helped me maximize the benefits of the available time for learning, knowledge acquisition, and professional certifications.
I was still relatively new to the Power BI program, and the idea occurred to me to apply what I had learned to real and actual data, attempting to derive patterns and insights from this data. At that time, I chose to analyze the data of my learning/training path.
Indeed, I carried out this interesting experiment, analyzing the data of the training courses I had taken, whether in-person or online, throughout my professional career of around 13 years at that time. The results were truly astonishing.
it appeared that I had studied for approximately 326 hours over the 13 years, resulting in a daily average of just five minutes!!! I was genuinely amazed; the number was much smaller than I anticipated. It's worth noting that this number only represents the study time for courses that have certificates, excluding other educational sources such as YouTube, books, or professional articles. Additionally, it only accounts for the recorded duration of the course, and actual study time is likely double the recorded duration for better knowledge consolidation. Even considering this, 10 minutes a day is still a relatively small number.
70% of in-person courses accounted for 230 hours, compared to only 30% for online courses, totaling 96 hours.
Moreover, preparatory and qualification courses, as a recent civil engineering graduate, took the lead with 105 hours.
self-learning turned out to be less than institution-directed learning. I thought I was doing well, but the difference was significant—56% of learning hours were institution-directed compared to 43% for self-learning. When comparing the number of courses and their hours over the years, I found that the best year was 2013 in terms of study hours, despite having fewer courses compared to 2022, which had more courses but shorter durations.
There seems to be a period of stagnation or hiatus between 2018 and 2020. I recall this period and the challenges I faced, and I might not be exaggerating when I say that the psychological factor is crucial in the inclination towards learning.
focusing on online courses, I found that the longest course was in data analysis, lasting 43 hours. Again, a temporal analysis of the courses revealed a surprise:
I started paying attention to this aspect of learning recently in 2020, precisely when I contracted COVID-19 and had to be quarantined. Initially, it seemed that there were few courses, but their durations were significant compared to now, where there are more courses but shorter durations. It appears that I became more eager for rapid progress and needed more self-motivation and enthusiasm.
Despite the fact that the daily average study time increased to 8.5 minutes from June 2020 to April 2022, it is still considered low and unsatisfactory.
When I conducted this analysis back then, I realized the truth about my shortcomings in self-learning and also became aware of the significant amount of time wasted daily without benefiting from it.
One of the most important results of this investigation was making strict decisions about dedicating time daily for learning and knowledge acquisition, even if it's just half an hour at the end of the day before bedtime.
Almost two years after this analysis, and following a well-structured training plan and commitment to it, today - thanks to God - I hold certifications as a Project Management Professional (PMP), Risk Management Professional (RMP), Business Analysis Professional (PBA), Scheduling Professional (SP), Strategic Planning Professional (SPP), and Key Performance Indicators Professional (CKPIP). Also I have completed courses such as Leadership Fundamentals from Harvard University, Planning using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), Cost Management Professional (CCP) preparation, and a Cost Control Workshop (CCW), and I am still progressing.
During this period, I faced the significant challenge of managing full-time responsibilities on a crucial mega-project operating within a fast-track system.
However, despite these demands, I successfully achieved these goals
Peter Drucker
Imagine with me if I hadn't conducted this measurement and analysis; most likely, I wouldn't have made any progress. Therefore, the key to improvement is having a real performance indicator that measures your progress towards the goal. After that, you can track and analyze the outputs to deduce patterns, relationships, and trends.
Are you willing to conduct such an analysis now?
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.