Do you ever want to learn something new but just kind of… don’t know where to start? Or maybe you want to plan your next curriculum (shout out to the TikTok trend for the concept!) but don’t know exactly how to get yourself to follow it.

What’s missing for you is most likely structure. Self-directed learning is hard without a framework, a deadline, or someone telling you what to do next.

And the stakes are real. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 projects that 39% of workers’ core skills will change by 2030, and 59% of workers will need reskilling or upskilling to keep pace. Even if you don’t want to learn a skill outside of work, learning how to upskill is vital for growth in your career. That’s the focus here.

Why Is Self-Directed Learning So Hard to Stick With?

Research from LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report found that only 15% of employees say their manager helped them build a career plan in the past six months, a 5-point drop from the previous year. If you’re waiting for someone at work to invest in your development, the data suggests most people are waiting a long time.

For women specifically, the gap is even sharper: entry-level women are more likely to recieve less help from more senior co-workers, according to the 2025 Women in the Workplace report.

This looked at opportunities such as:

  • Put employee forward as a candidate for promotion
  • Connect employee with someone who could help their career development
  • Recommend employee for a stretch assignment

Women are at a structural disadvantage then men in the workplace.

Not only that, but you’ve spent the majority of your life with deadlines, grades, and a teacher checking in. Self-directed learning is entirely on your own, with no deadlines, grades, or teachers. No wonder it’s so hard to stick with.

There are a number of other obstacles that appear:

  • Decision paralysis: too many resources, no clear starting point
  • Progress is invisible early on and can often feel like nothing is happening
  • Competing priorities: a full-time job, life, exhaustion

And here’s the part that makes it harder: without active reinforcement, learners forget up to 50% of new information within 24 hours, and retention drops by 90% within a week, a pattern known as the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve.

But it’s important to note that self-directed learning isn’t impossible. It is just a skill you need to build.

How Do You Decide What Skill to Learn Next?

The shiny object problem: starting five things and finishing none. It’s what happens when you often start trying to learn things on your own.

You need to focus on one specific thing. Just one, at least at first.

Two questions to narrow it down:

  1. Is this skill closing a gap or opening a door? Closing a gap (something you need for your current role) is faster to motivate; opening a door (something for where you want to go) requires more intrinsic pull. Both are valid. Just know which one you’re doing.
  2. Can I describe what “good enough” looks like in 60-90 days? If you can’t name a concrete outcome, the skill is too broad.

Practical filters:

  • Scan job descriptions for roles one level above yours and note what appears repeatedly that you don’t have yet
  • Ask your manager or a mentor what they’d prioritize if they were you
  • Pick the skill you’ve been putting off the longest. Avoidance is usually a signal.

This framework works for anything you want to learn, even languages!

How Do You Build a Self-Study Plan From Scratch?

Step 1: Define the outcome. One sentence: “By [date], I will be able to [specific thing].” Example: “By September 1, I will be able to build and deploy a basic Python data pipeline.” Vague goals produce vague progress.

Step 2: Choose your resources. A strong self-study curriculum uses a mix of:

  • A structured learning path for foundations. IBM SkillsBuild is a strong free option: tech-focused, self-paced, and available to RTC members through our IBM partnership. [link]
  • Documentation or official guides for going deeper
  • A project or real problem to apply what you’re learning
  • A community for questions and accountability

Step 3: Use spaced repetition, not cramming. This is where the science matters. Research consistently shows that spaced repetition (reviewing material at increasing intervals) produces significantly better long-term retention than massed practice.

In practical terms: shorter sessions spread over time beat one long session per week. 30 minutes three times a week will outperform a 90-minute Sunday block.

Step 4: Sequence it. Broad → specific → applied.

Week 1–2: foundations.

Week 3–4: go deeper on one component.

Week 5–6: build something.

Don’t wait until you know everything to start applying. Application is how learning consolidates.

Step 5: Timebox each resource. Give each resource a deadline. “Finish this course” is not a plan. “Complete modules 1–4 by Friday” is.

If something takes longer than expected, cut it. Don’t let one resource derail the whole plan.

How Do You Make Time to Study When You Have a Full-Time Job?

You’re likely extremely busy. Finding time to study isn’t impossible, though. Here are some ideas:

  • Fixed sessions beat flexible ones. Pick a recurring slot (same day, same time) and protect it like a meeting. “I’ll study when I have time” reliably results in no studying.
  • Smaller is better than nothing. 30 focused minutes, three times a week, compound. Research on spaced repetition directly supports this. Distributed practice outperforms long infrequent sessions for retention.
  • Protect the first 15 minutes. The hardest part is starting. Have your materials open before the session begins so you don’t spend study time on setup.
  • Use dead time. Commuting, waiting, walking: putting a course on your phone for passive listening in a relevant area counts as priming for the focused session later.

How Do You Stay Motivated When There’s No Deadline?

Nobody is checking your homework anymore. No grades, no gold stars, no one noticing if you skip a week. That’s the real motivation problem, and it’s also the fix. Psychologist Gail Matthews at Dominican University of California found that people who sent weekly progress reports to a friend achieved 70% of their goals. People who did not? Just 30%. One person checking in nearly doubles follow-through.

Practical ways to build this in without a formal setup:

  • Tell one person. Sharing your goal with a colleague, a friend, or someone in your RTC community creates soft accountability, no formal structure needed.
    • That’s why we’ve set up the IBM SkillsBuild Slack channel as well!
  • Keep a visible progress log. A simple doc tracking what you completed each session makes progress tangible. “I’ve done 6 of 12 modules” is motivating in a way that “I’ve been studying for 3 weeks” isn’t.
  • Set milestone checkpoints. Intermediate wins (“I’ll build something by week 4”) break up a long timeline. Most self-study plans fail around week 3, right before the first milestone would have hit.
  • Build in a reset protocol. You will miss sessions. When you do: don’t try to catch up. Just resume the next scheduled session. Trying to catch up is what kills plans for good.

You don’t have to find an accountability partner from scratch, either. RTC’s mentorship program is a natural place to find someone to check in with, even informally.

This approach works because it replaces decision fatigue and willpower with structure: one skill, a simple curriculum with spaced practice, protected recurring time, and visible progress.

You don’t need a degree program or a company L&D budget. You need a plan, a calendar slot, and somewhere to start.

Explore IBM SkillsBuild: free, self-paced, built for tech learners. RTC members get access through our partnership.

Learning is harder alone. RTC connects you with 50,000+ women in tech navigating the same path. Join the community!