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You Pay Twice For Every Course You Take
Unless it's free. Then you pay once.
You're lucky if you want to learn to code. The amount of learning materials is staggering. You can find a course on almost everything you're interested in.
Some courses are free, others shockingly expensive. But no matter which one you choose, the highest cost of every course is hidden — it's your time.
Time is money
Time is your most valuable asset when you're learning to code. Most of us have some professional and personal obligations, and our spare time is scarce. Finding time to learn between our jobs and chores is a huge challenge.
So when we successfully manage to make some time to learn, we have to think carefully about how we spend it. And the word "spend" is not a coincidence. We should start thinking about investing our time just like we're thinking about investing our money.
Some courses may be cheap in terms of money, but very expensive in terms of time. For example, a $20 course that lasts 30 hours seems like a bargain — you get so much material for so little. But if these materials are of poor quality, they may be a much worse investment than a high-quality course that costs $150 and takes 8 hours.
If you're struggling with perceiving spending time as an investment, you can estimate the worth of your time in dollars. Let's say an hour of your time is worth $20 (and that's not a lot for a programmer you want to be). If you account for that, the first course costs $620 (30 hours + $20), and the second costs $310 (8 hours + $150). So the second one is cheaper! Considering your time in monetary terms will help you to make better learning decisions.
Using this method, you can discover that an expensive course is cheaper than a free one if the former is shorter and of better quality.
How to invest time better
We can agree that you don’t want to waste time, but unfortunately, sometimes you do. I’ve got good news — some techniques can help you invest your time better. They will allow you to build a solid learning plan, pick suitable courses and learn as effectively as possible.
