Ready for a challenge? I want you to spend an hour a day learning about something | work on a side project | write a blog | {insert something productive} (no social media scrolling aka frying your brain doesn't count!)
Excuses
"But Zhi, I can't do that, I have a full time job, kids to take care of, sick grandma and (insert an excuse here)". Look, I get it, we're all adulting (or teenaging if you're a teen), it's really hard to find an hour a day to do this! I'm gonna have to stop you right there and call BS on that. Unless you have a child who needs your undivided attention at all times 24 hours a day, or an elderly who requires your assistance all the time, I say there is a way to find an hour out of your busy day. Most of us are addicted to our phones/tablets/computers in one way or another, don't believe me? Just open up the screen usage app on your phone and see how many hours you spent staring at those devices. All I'm asking is to instead of spending time on those, put that time in something positive instead.
Collecting materials
Let's say I want to spend an hour reading something to bette meself, I periodically collect content to read and place into in a browser folder called "read".
Speaking from the perspective of a programmer, I find Hacker News a great source for interesting ideas from the dev community. X (formerly Twitter) comes close second, because the people I follow tend to share technical docs/videos that are trending in the community.
Another thing I like to do is create a private playlist on Youtube where I collect and organize tech videos I encounter (either from YT's algorithm or from the sources mentioned above).
You don't have to do what I do, but as long as you have a way to "read/watch later" a piece of content, then you're set.
Strange things start to happen
At the beginning, it's very very hard to hit that 1 hour a day goal, I think I hit only 15 ish on my first month, but after that, I've been consistently hitting 30+ a month. It's interesting how the human mind works, by the time I do this on my second month, I would feel weirdly unfulfilled if I don't do my one hour, and it gets especially bad when it's near the end of the month if I'm far away from the goal. Maybe it's just me but I have a feeling a lot of other people will feel the same way.
I'm a firm believer in the power of habit and consistency. One of my favorite quotes from Will Smith is
"You don't set out to build a wall. You don't say 'I'm going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that's ever been built. ' You don't start there. You say 'I'm gonna lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid,' and you do that every single day, and soon you have a wall.” - Will Smith
I think the power of habit is extremely underrated and I encourage everyone to give this challenge a try and see how can bring positive benefits to your growth.