Daily routines 2: Extracurricular Learning Routine

Busy, but still want to invest in knowledge outside of your responsibilities? In this blogpost I’ll be outlining how I try to keep up with learning-related hobbies outside of my coursework, so I can broaden my expertise to other areas of interest.

Language learning

I’ve been actively learning French by myself for about two years now. Throughout that period I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t in the long run: At first, I relied a lot on motivation to keep up with basically everything people on the internet recommended for learning a language. Think: French series, YouTube videos, music, books, podcasts, speaking to yourself, keeping a diary in French, grammar lessons, Duolingo (and the list goes on). This was fine as long as I was motivated, but it’s not exactly a sustainable way to go about it. My routine now is way more minimalistic: Each week, I challenge myself to listen to a French podcast (usually an episode of ‘InnerFrench’ – these are about 40 minutes long) and to complete an exercise from a workbook (‘Le francais en vrai! B1-C1’). Alongsides these two habits, I do a lesson on Duolingo every day. This may not seem much, but I find that it’s enough to keep French at the forefront of my life, whilst still being sustainable to keep up. When I’m feeling more motivated, I like to watch French YouTubers, listen to French music or meet up with a French-speaking friend! If I have the time, I like to read in French as well, but this takes up a lot of mental load. 

Investing 

Learning about investing is a subject that is deliberately less prioritized in my life at the moment. Nevertheless, I still like to take small steps towards a higher level of understanding. Currently, my ‘learning-routine’ consists of listening to one episode of ‘Jong Beleggen, De Podcast’,  a week. When other priorities take a backseat later this year, I’d very much like to read more books on this subject. Some on my TBR list are:

• The Art of Spending Money – Morgan Housel
• Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
• The Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham
• Nothing But Net – Mark Mahaney
• One Up On Wall Street – Peter Lynch

Other interests I’d like to explore 

Unfortunately, time is not unlimited, which means some interests cannot be explored at the moment. Still, there are many things on my list for the future. Perhaps you’ll gain some inspiration from this list!

• Cooking
• Chess
• Piano
• Videography
• Tennis
• Making jewelry
• Human psychology
• Health optimization

And probably many more I’m forgetting at the moment.

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Good luck and have fun learning!