On-line Courses and Poor Scheduling...

Awhile back, I came across a web site that offered free courses.  edx.org is the URL.  There are tons of courses ranging from computer science, history, or cooking.  You can take the courses for free or pay for getting a certificate.  

I find that my schedule gets crazy every time I sign up for a course.  I signed up for the Linux Administration course and got through lesson 6, then had to drop.  I signed up for HTML5 and Python (taught by an MIT instructor) and ended up dropping both because there was no way I could spend time concentrating on the homework.

I have two issues.  This month has been pretty crazy for some odd reason.  Next, I wonder if I have some form of attention deficit disorder.  I am so horrible with just concentrating.  This could be part of my own personal issues with trying to clear everything in my apartment.

I can sit down and start going through the course, but I get distracted.  I have noticed that distractions at work are at a premium.  While I realize it is "work", the issue I have is that I am supposed to take all of these courses that the company has assigned to me by the end of the year.  I have blocked out an hour of time on my schedule, but peers keep scheduling meetings during that time.  I cannot decline them since I have to be there.  That whole situation leads me to the "You have Outlook and I show busy for that time period, why can you not reschedule for another time?" complaint.  Of course, that does not matter when you have people who go over your head to make you reschedule your daily meeting to fit their schedule and they still never show.  That is really annoying, but it never matters.

So, I need to figure out how to reduce the distractions and learn to concentrate better on listening/learning.  I honestly want to learn these new technologies.  I realize I have to work on my internal distractions as well as figuring out how to reduce the outside distractions.  I think due to overwhelming external distractions, over time, that is what causes adult attention disorder.  We have so much coming at us at one time and we are expected to multi-task all of the time.  The honest truth, multi-tasking does not work for humans.  To achieve the best work, 100% concentration must be applied.  Otherwise, the work only appears to be a half-hearted effort and no one wants that hanging over their head. 

Next week, I am going to work on restructuring my time.  It is just the hardest thing to do.  One can have all sorts of commitments, but if you cannot spend a lot of time on those, nothing gets done.  I figure something has to give somewhere.  Why does it always have to be me?