Many interesting answers in this thread. But to get to your question: How do you skill up? My answer would be: As best you can, all the time. Find pockets of time and learning tasks that fit within them. Explore opportunities: Moocs, toy projects, more serious projects, read books, listen to podcasts during your commute, when you work out (which you should even though you don't have time for it), switch jobs from time to time, talk to people. Just never stop. One thing you should do however, from time to time, is to give up: It's not as if every learning task is feasible. Kids/work/family do put sometime severe constraints on what you can do. Some things just don't work out, and you won't necessarily know what they are before trying. So try lots of things, but give up from time to time when you have to. Learn about what your constraints are, and design next your attempt to fit them better, but don't stop. (.... but every now and then, you just have to find/steal/cheat to get some time to just hack, there is no substitute :-) )