Is it possible to study too many things in parallel?

Question

Unfortunately I did not study well at school, I was not interested in many things, and I did not understand that things.

But I have matured, interests have become more. I am now 20 years old. Now I have to correct the mistakes of the past. I am now studying, writing and earning money with JavaScript. But I want to study mathematics to understand more complicated things in computer science and learn other languages (English, Russian, Japanese).

And is it possible to study all these things (to study, write on modern frameworks, learn math from the beginning, and learn languages (not programming)) in parallel? For example, doing own work for 4 hours, after that to study mathematics for 3 hours and after that to learn languages 2 hours.

Will not I have a mess in my head? And how to learn things correctly so that there is no mess in my head?

Answer 1

Actually, what you want to do is commendable. And no, at the scale of things you talk about, I don't think you are likely to get yourself confused. In fact, you may have the opportunity to learn different things in an integrated way. In some ways the educational system, which puts different topics in different boxes, isn't optimal and everyone needs some experience in integrating what they know into a personal whole.

I once learned quite a bit of French by reading Math papers from French mathematicians, though I was already pretty good at math, but you could, for example, read CS papers in Russian. Knowing something of the underlying ideas before you start lets you focus on how they are expressed in Russian, rather than Japanese or English.

You already seem to be aware that you will need discipline and to set aside time for your studies. That works for nearly everyone. If you are studying several things then you can also switch to something else at a point at which you either get stuck on some idea, or get tired of the current topic. Often letting your mind work on something else is a good way to let your unconscious work out details that you might miss when working in a concentrated way.

You should also be aware that you are now (age 20) at the height of your mental (as well as physical) powers. It is never too late to start, but you are starting at a good point. Onward.

Answer 2

First of all, kudos to you for wishing to enrich yourself!

In addition to Buffy's fine answer, I might recommend an approach to self-studies that I once learned that ensures steady progress on multiple fronts. My understanding is that the technique itself is an old Jewish approach, used for hundreds of years by people becoming talmudic scholars.

Put aside 30 minutes a day, and make sure that you always do those 30 minutes. Have a series of 4-6 books that you would like to learn from. Your goal every day is to quickly skim over what you read the previous day within each book, and read 1-3 new pages as well. When you complete a book, just take it out of the rotation and put a new book into its slot. Over the course of a year, you will be reading 500-1000 pages per rotational slot. Needless to say, you will make a lot of progress.

What you get out of this is a slow but steady stream of learning. The quick re-skim means that you are getting review over time (regular review is an important component of retention), and the fact that you are learning from many different books simultaneously increases your odds of making connections between the different topics that you are learning, helping you to integrate the information into a more cohesive understanding.

Best of luck on your journey!