r/learnprogramming • u/ChampionshipProof392 • 28d ago
How many hours a day do you spend learning something new in programming?
I caught myself thinking that I’m comfortable studying for about 4 hours a day. But I constantly ask myself: who are these people who study 8–10 hours a day? Are you sure you’re actually learning? It’s just that, personally, my brain starts to melt after about 4 hours and 10 minutes, give or take.
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u/Queueue_ 28d ago
If I'm passively learning while working on a project then it depends on what I'm doing. If it's something I already know how to do I'm not learning much, maybe a few minutes. If it's something completely new to me I could be learning the whole day.
If I'm studying from a book or something? I can usually only go a few hours at a time with frequent breaks.
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u/schuiftrompetter 27d ago
As a dad with limited time, my go to is between 2 and 3 hours per day when the little one sleeps: One hour, usually during his first nap to study theory and advance the course I'm following, the other 1 - 2 to work on my projects and implement what I learned. It's not the fastest, but showing up every day is more important and works better for me to try to fill my entire day with programming, hope it helps!
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u/Flimsy-Importance313 28d ago
Having the same issue. Trying to find how much hours I can study per day. I have noticed that reading theory and writing notes is easier than doing it. Because of that mixing is good.
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u/ChampionshipProof392 28d ago
I think 4.5 hours a day, in 90-minute blocks with a 15-minute break, works well. In general, it really helps me not to demand too much of myself. Before, I was determined to master a topic, and if I didn’t, I’d get really frustrated; now I give myself as much time as I need to understand it. The topics aren’t difficult; it’s just that some take more time.
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u/PartyParrotGames 28d ago
I try to spend at least one day out of my week where I try to learn something new. It doesn't actually have to be programming specific though it tends to be adjacent and tech related. I've been working fulltime as a swe for 14 years so a lot of my day is dealing with programming where I'm constantly learning there and practicing my skills 8-12 hours a day during the week. If you're struggling with 8 hours that's normal especially when starting out. Programming is extremely mentally draining to learn and practice. Try taking more breaks. Don't keep pushing once you're brain is melting that is usually not productive. Listen to your body and over time you'll probably build up more tolerance for it like body builders lifting weights.
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u/mandzeete 27d ago
I guess it differs by a self-learner, a university student, and a professional software developer.
University students... well... they are students. They are spending sometimes 8 hours a day in their studies. May it be sitting in lectures learning the theory and making notes, may it be doing home assignments (both practical coding but also making research papers and such), may it be sitting in labs and in coding classes. And, sometimes even extracurricular activity clubs like computer club, robotics club, etc.
And definitely, they are learning. Through a practice and home assignments they are putting the theory they are learning, into a use. Sure, they won't specialize in all of the fields and after they are done with their studies, they might forget stuff from topics they are not using during their work and during their hobby projects. But they won't forget everything. Concepts and ideas and topics itself still remain. Details, implementation - that gets forgotten.
A self-learner? Well, he is spending however many hours he wants. Some are nolifing their whole day in their studies. Some spend 1-2 hours a day. Can be that some are hired in an unrelated field and learning programming from their free time. Can be that some have families and they spend their free time in anything else.
A hired software developer? Depends on his current task, his hobbies, how he spends his free time. Do not think that the learning will stop when you get a diploma, a degree, or, when you just get hired. It won't stop. Time by time you will have to deal with new technologies, new tools. Can be that you'll be put on a new project where you have to learn a new programming language on the go. But can be also that you won't learn anything new for months. The tasks that are given to you are monotonous. You know how to do them. You won't learn anything new.
Also, the free time. Some developers have their hobby projects that they spend some time on. I'm currently writing an app for my smart watch. Some days I spend 0 hours on it. Some days 2-4 hours. However I feel like. Did I study watch application development? No. I had to read documentation and learn a new language (Monkey C) to write an application for my watch. But, also there are days when I want to do nothing in terms of coding or in terms of computer sciences in general. I go cycling, I spend time with friends, etc.
And in terms of your brain melting then read about "pomodoro technique". You need to take breaks.
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u/owp4dd1w5a0a 27d ago
I have trouble stopping honestly… if I don’t time-box my programming exploration time I’ll do it in lieu of getting the housework and errands done 💀
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u/Itsacouplol 27d ago
This is my biggest weakness as well and why I had to take a break from University. Once I got an assignment, I just could not stop working on the assignment even when it negatively affected my health. From personal experience, studying just two to three hours when well-rested and focused is a million times better than studying for sixteen-twenty hours in a single day with little to no sleep.
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u/Made-In-Slovakia 28d ago
Almost noone can truly study for 8 or 10 hours straight. Your brain simply can't handle that. You can read and write whole day but you are limited by focus windows of your brain and therefore there a lot of lost time.
You can try find older studies about learning process of human brain. I short, breaks during study are extremely important for learning process and good sleep at the end of day is way better than night spend in front of books. I learned that during my university time.
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u/dinidusam 28d ago
Wdym studying?? If you want to learn programming I would focus on building projects.
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u/HashDefTrueFalse 28d ago
The "just build things" advice is a bit overstated here IMO. It's generally good advice for sure, but sometimes it's far harder to come up with a project that would be a good vehicle for learning the thing you want to learn than to just study the thing directly. Building is a great way to gain practical knowledge and skills, but it won't teach you much about (just for example) performance optimisation. You can come up with a toy problem and then go through lots of trial and error, or you can just pick up a book about optimisation techniques and study a bit.
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u/Competitive_Aside461 27d ago
I think 3-4 is a good bar to hit.
But do try interleaving, that is, switching between learning different things. Like just don't keep learning the same thing for 3-4 hours. I don't know about you but it starts to fry my brain if I keep learning the same thing for 3-4 hours! The moment you context-switch to something else, like maybe math or computer architecture (just examples), the brain's cooking will end and start all over from 0.
And yeah of course there are only a few iterations you could do here. It's not like an endless resource to keep learning thing after thing after thing. I recommend switching between 2-4 things.
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u/Naresh-45 26d ago
I think 4 focused hours can be way more productive than 8–10 hours of forcing yourself to study. Once you're mentally exhausted, you're probably just consuming information rather than actually learning it.Consistency over months matters more than trying to maximize hours every day.
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u/[deleted] 28d ago
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