One Hour. 60 Minutes. 3,600 Seconds. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, but somehow, the idea of carving out just one hour to learn something new feels monumental for most people.

It’s strange when you think about it — one hour is the time it takes to watch a TV episode, scroll endlessly through social media, or mindlessly wander the internet. Yet, when it comes to dedicating this small sliver of the day to a productive purpose, many people just can’t seem to do it.

My question is: why?

The answer is nothing insidious, yet profound when you think about it: because one hour feels “optional”. It’s not part of the non-negotiables of our day like eating, sleeping, or working. It feels like time we should spend doing something, but we rarely do. Yet, if you harness that single hour every day, the impact can be radical. One hour is enough to learn a new skill, develop a passion, or build a foundation for something life-changing.

How do I know this? Because I’ve done it myself.

The Simple Math of Transformation

One hour per day may seem small, but over time, it compounds into something significant:

• 7 hours a week — that’s nearly a full workday of learning something new.
• 30 hours a month — that’s the equivalent of completing an entire module in a university class.
• 365 hours in a year — over 15 full days spent purely on growth.

But let’s think bigger. They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, a concept popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. While mastery might be the long game, dedicating an hour a day means you’d accumulate over 350 hours in one year toward any skill. That’s enough to make significant progress — not just dabble, but truly level up.

And the beauty? Learning compounds. What starts as a slow process turns into real momentum, which is exactly what happened to me when I decided to teach myself how to code.

How I Taught Myself to Code…