I'm in the military, I have an hour of PT every morning at work as part of my work day. I don't do any study when my kids are awake, they get my full attention. I take them grocery shopping Wednesday afternoon, I do nightly homework, we have activities on weekends and some school nights (i.e. this week is dentist Thursday and school disco night Friday). Most of my friends have children of similar ages so I tend to see them a lot on weekends. I simply spend my free time studying. The average North American watched 5 hours of media per day in 2015, that's 35 hours per week.
I know this life isn't for everyone, for me this is a necessary thing I need to do if I want to change from military to software development. I can't stay in the military forever as a single parent, it's simply not feasible, so I'm doing what I can to set myself up post-Army. It's not the most enjoyable life but it's temporary and it's an investment in my future. I'm not trying to say it's the solution for everyone but if you have goals you want to achieve then it's certainly a possible life for most people.
I think what a lot of people, especially parents, lack is energy. There is a reason I do most of my study in the early morning with a very early nightly bedtime, it's because I have more energy before work than after work. After 7 hours of study and 8 hours of work, I'm exhausted. When my head hits the pillow I'm out. It's probably a good part of the reason why so many people rack up 30+ hours of TV per day, they want to sit on the lounge doing nothing of a night. Having daily PT at work has been a blessing, it's kept a high level of fitness up and I feel this gives me more daily energy.
I know this life isn't for everyone, for me this is a necessary thing I need to do if I want to change from military to software development. I can't stay in the military forever as a single parent, it's simply not feasible, so I'm doing what I can to set myself up post-Army. It's not the most enjoyable life but it's temporary and it's an investment in my future. I'm not trying to say it's the solution for everyone but if you have goals you want to achieve then it's certainly a possible life for most people.
I think what a lot of people, especially parents, lack is energy. There is a reason I do most of my study in the early morning with a very early nightly bedtime, it's because I have more energy before work than after work. After 7 hours of study and 8 hours of work, I'm exhausted. When my head hits the pillow I'm out. It's probably a good part of the reason why so many people rack up 30+ hours of TV per day, they want to sit on the lounge doing nothing of a night. Having daily PT at work has been a blessing, it's kept a high level of fitness up and I feel this gives me more daily energy.