💬 How I finally started learning new work tools

3 years ago a younger colleague started using a new reporting tool at work. I made fun of him. I had my own way of doing things, a big spreadsheet I'd built over 8 years. Within 6 months he was finishing in 1 hour what took me most of a morning. I pretended not to notice. Then my manager asked me to learn it as well. I was annoyed and a little scared. At my age, I thought, I'll just look slow. So I did something small. Every Thursday evening I gave it 1 hour at the kitchen table. Some weeks I skipped it. Some weeks it was 2 hours because I got stuck on 1 thing. After 3 months I stopped feeling stupid. After 6 I was teaching someone else. I used to think learning meant a course, a certificate, and 1 hour every single day. That plan failed twice. I quit in the second week both times and felt bad. The small weekly hour worked only because it was small. I could never argue myself out of it. My family laughs about the Thursday slot now. They say the kitchen smells of cold tea. At work now, when something new comes, I feel less worried. I know roughly how long it takes me. The newer tools are everywhere, and I still don't understand half of them. I wonder how others fit learning around long hours and family. Do you set a time or just wait? If you have a routine that survived more than a month, tell me what it looks like.

Same here with a new tool at my own job last year. I assumed my old skills would be wasted. Then I saw that the old way of thinking carried over a lot more than I feared. The software was new, but the problems were the same ones I'd been solving for years. Still, I disagree about 1 hour being small. For me it's 30 minutes or nothing.

That daily hour idea is exactly what stopped me too. I tried it for 10 days, missed 1 evening and quit.