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How to motivate oneself to learn something new during notice period?

 
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I know , it is quite easy to say that one should utilize his/her time when S/he is on notice period. You are serving Notice Period and don't exactly know that what work would you do in your future job. Sitting idle and just looking at watch to Tick 05:15, does not make any sense.

During this time, one can not go and can't do too much as you are being restricted to do anything.

can any one suggest what should I learn and how to motivate myself to learn something new?

Thanks in Advance.. !
 
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Fidel,
Is there anything your employer wants you to do? Knowledge transfer? Pair with teammates?

If not, you get to learn for the sake of learning. Which is fun. Even if you aren't going to use it, you can play with something. Have you learned Java 8 yet?
 
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If they don't want you to do anything, they've got a lot of nerve making you stay there!

 
Fidel Edwards
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Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:Fidel,
Is there anything your employer wants you to do? Knowledge transfer? Pair with teammates?



I am done with the Knowledge transfer, now I am getting some random queries from my Team mates.

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:

you can play with something. Have you learned Java 8 yet?



No not yet... ! I will give it a try. But as I said that I have too much idle time in office so it means so many thoughts are coming in my mind like learning few new things like MongoDB, Analytics, Advance Hibernate, Concurrency, Spring +(DI,Batch, Scheduler, etc) and lots of things

The problem originally lies on remain focused.. especially when you have lots of time with lots of stuff to confuse with.
 
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Asking yourself "which of these technologies should I learn" is not likely to give a useful answer, because without an end goal, all of them appear equally important.
As the quote goes "when you don't know where you want to go, any road can take you there"!

Better, ask yourself "what is one problem I / my family / my friends / society have that I can solve by writing a software system?".
Then find out which technologies would help you implement it.
Then learn that short list of technologies which are relevant to you.

Use real world problems to help you stick to a narrow path of relevant technologies.
 
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If you have access and permissions from your current employer, I would suggest pick something which interests you but you do now know, install the dev tools and start getting your hands dirty. I started off on Android development in a similar way.
 
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In addition to learning new technologies, you might want to think about how you will present yourself in interviews. Create a narrative for yourself. Techies frequently overemphasize their technical skills during interviews. "I know Java, Servlets, Spring, Hibernate, blah blah". Problem is that there are 1000 techies who say the same thing. Many times what can make you stand out from everyone else is the soft skills that you bring in. A lot of techies undervalue their soft skills. Creating a narrative out of your work helps you "weave" those soft skills into your interview. It makes your interviewing skills got from a 4 to a 7

So, for example, when someone asks you "tell me about your last project", most people say "I implemented blah blah using dah dah technologies". That is fine. Everyone does that. It won;t make you stand out. Instead, if you use a narrative :- "When I started on this project, the employer was facing Dum Dum problem, and we decided to use dah dah technologies to implement blah blah. As a result of this, my employer got Zoom Zoom" Create a story. It doesn't have to be a business problem followed with impact. It could be anything soft that you did. Maybe you picked up a new technology. Maybe you trained someone else. Maybe you interfaced with non-technical people. Maybe you built rapport with the team. Anything that shows you are more than the run-of-the-mill "resource"

The thing is techies are really bad at creating these stories naturally. MBAs do this even when they haven't done anything :p. Once you do, it adds a lot of *pow* to your interview. It requires a lot of introspection to really think about what you did that makes you you. And I bet there is something that differentiates you from the herd if you think about it. You just need to spend time looking for that person that is inside you.

You have the time. If you already have a few technologies under your belt, why not spend it in enhancing your interviewing skills? Your interviewing skills will help you in every interview. Any technologies that you learn will help you only in interviews at companies that need that technology.
 
Fidel Edwards
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Thanks Jayesh for nice reply.. !


I am now thinking of "Spring Batch+Spring Scheduler" to help out my current project, to see at what extent I can groom myself.


Many thanks to all who advised me like a good Friend or Teacher .. !
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