One of the best ways to make use of your spare time into something productive is to learn a new skill.
Have you noticed that successful people don’t waste their time into unproductive things? Most of the time they are busy managing their business and when they get spare time, they try to learn new skills.
They believe learning is a never-ending habit and we should always try to learn something new that can be helpful in our life.
Thus, I have listed 18 cool and useful skills to learn that will definitely improve your life both professionally and personally.
Most of the skills are also useful to make money online and you could even turn them into a full-time business.
READ ALSO: 4 Productivity Hacks for Online Entrepreneurs
1. Learn Adobe After Effects For Visual Effects
Skill Description
After effects is a digital visual motion graphic application used in the post-production process of filmmaking, video games and television production.
Learning After Effects lets you create VFX effects, add scripts to animations & much more.
If you’re attracted to seeing visual graphics on the internet or movies, you can create your own using this software.
Course Name:
After Effects – Motion Graphics & Data Visualization.
What You’ll Learn:
- Learn to animate spreadsheets.
- How to create voice-over infographics?
- How to make animated pie charts, line charts & bar graphs.
- How to animate icons making beautiful infographics.
- All the animation techniques needed to bring your data to life.
2. Filmmaking
Skill Description:
Filmmaking is the art and craft of visual storytelling. With this skill, you can show a story through moving pictures rather than telling it.
Whether you are a YouTuber or an individual Filmmaker, you’ll need this skill to craft mesmerizing videos to depict your stories.
Course Name:
Complete Filmmaker Guide: Become an Incredible Video Creator.
What You’ll Learn:
- Learn about lenses, lighting, sound recording, cinematography, and editing!
- Turning an idea into your own unique style of video.
- How to produce amazing content without expensive equipment.
- Gain a film school level understanding of filmmaking & much more.
3. Pencil Portrait
Skill Description:
Pencil Portrait is the sketch done on a sheet with some graphite and charcoal. It doesn’t require any color as shading is used to create the tones and form of each feature.
It is actually a basic skill that some are born with and some don’t. If you fall into the latter, you can draw like a professional by taking an online course.
Course Name:
Portrait Drawing: How to Draw a Beauty Portrait with Pencils
What You’ll Learn:
- How to draw a beautiful portrait with pencils and brushes?
- How to draw hair, hand, and dress?
- Draw facial components like eyes, nose, eyebrow, lips.
- How to shade the skin?
4. Learn Adobe Photoshop
Skill Description:
Adobe Photoshop is a powerful editing program that allows you to edit photos, design graphics, and much more.
Learning photoshop is such a valuable skill that can even get you a job in graphic or web design companies.
If you’re a social media addict and loves uploading photos, then photoshop can transform your badly clicked photos into well-edited ones.
Not only you can edit your own photos, but you can also create flyers, brochures & other graphics that are in demand in digital marketing agencies.
Course Name:
Adobe Photoshop CC: Your Complete Beginner to Advanced Class.
What You’ll Learn:
- Learn the necessary tools for editing and manipulating images.
- How to edit photos with a variety of tools.
- How to retouch photos to remove blemishes, fix red-eye, whiten teeth, and more.
- How to use blending modes.
- Learn how to use the shape tool and pen tool to design custom shapes.
5. Music-Production
Skill Description:
Earlier, for producing music, learning music instruments was a must.
But now, music production software like FL Studio is all you need. You can compose, arrange, record, edit, mix and master professional quality music with just a few clicks.
If you love to create your own music or want to make instrumentals, learning FL Studio won’t disappoint you.
Course Name:
FL Studio 20 – Music Production In FL Studio for Mac & PC.
What You’ll Learn:
- Learn The Basics of FL Studio.
- How To Manage FL Studio Fast.
- Create Professional Music Productions.
- How To Create Mastering on a Mixed Project.
- Create Mixdowns
6. Travel Photography
Skill Description:
Travel photography is all about clicking pictures of the landscape, people, cultures, customs, and history while traveling.
It is an art to see the beauty in most unexpected places and transforming it into photographs.
If you travel a lot and would like to capture your perfect moments either for social media or photo album, then photography skill is needed.
To get started, you should know how to operate a camera and be familiar with its basic settings. Along with it, you should also have creativity and imagination that can find several ways to interpret what you’re seeing.
Course Name:
Travel Photography: Take Beautiful Photos on Your Adventures.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to take Amazing photos on your next trip?
- The right equipment for photography.
- How to edit and share your photos like a pro!
7. Copywriting
Skill Description:
Copywriting skill is used to write advertisement promotional material.
Its sole purpose is to persuade the audience to take action such as buying a product/service or signing up.
Convincing people to take action through writing is an art & its not a cup of tea for everyone.
There are many strategies and tricks involved which triggers people emotion and Copywriters are familiar with that.
They exactly know how to use powerful words and psychology to convince people to take action.
When you acquire such skills, you can offer your services to Digital marketing agencies & individual bloggers to get paid.
Course Name:
The Complete Copywriting Course: Write to Sell Like a Pro.
What You’ll Learn:
- Learn how to sell more products and services.
- Hacks and secrets from the world’s most successful copywriters.
- The sales psychology you NEED to grow a profitable business.
- Ethical persuasion methods.
- Compel your readers using timeless sales psychology.
8. Bookkeeping
Skill Description:
The process of managing & recording all the transactions for a business is known as Bookkeeping.
Every business needs a bookkeeper to measure success and failure. If you have bookkeeping skills, you can apply for the bookkeeper’s job to get paid.
An average Bookkeeper makes at least $16-$17 an hour and $34k annually which is not bad considering the job.
To get started, you should know data entry skills, knowledge of bookkeeping principles, attention to detail, accounting and much more.
Course Name:
Xero – How to become a successful Xero Bookkeeper
What You’ll Learn:
- Benefit from joining the Xero Partner Program.
- How to manage your own business finances from the beginning?
- Create your brand identity.
- Learn how and where to market your business & much more.
9. Microsoft Excel
Skill Description:
Excel is one of those tools used in businesses for analyzing and storing data. They are used to represent data in a more structured & presentable form.
The best thing about Excel is that it offers a lot of formulas & shortcuts to making your task easier and faster.
If you run a business and need to store numerical data in a more organized way, then learning excel will really help you.
Course Name:
Microsoft Excel – Excel from Beginner to Advanced
What You’ll Learn:
- Common Excel functions used in the Office.
- How to maintain large sets of Excel data in a list or table.
- Create dynamic reports by mastering one of the most popular tools.
- Learn dynamic formulas with IF, VLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH functions & much more.
10. Stock Trading
Skill Description:
A stock trader is someone who frequently buys and sells shares in different companies to capitalize on daily price fluctuations.
If you are aware of stock trading strategies & know how the stock market works, you can make a profit every day, every week and every month.
The following course teaches you the complete foundation of stock trading. Whether you want to generate side income or full-time income, the stock trading course is all you need.
Course Name:
The Complete Foundation Stock Trading Course
What You’ll Learn:
- Understand how the stock market works.
- Get an insight into a traders mind.
- Different Exchanges: NYSE, NASDAQ & AMEX.
- Money management & much more.
11. Freelance Business
Skill Description:
Imagine doing your favorite thing and making a full-time income from it. Whether it’s drawing, writing, design, etc, each one can be transformed into a business where you are your own boss.
You can set your own schedule, work with really awesome people, make your own rules and enjoy an environment with lots of freedom. That’s the freelance business for you.
However, starting a freelance business requires the right guidance and strategies. You will need certain skills such as organizational skills, business strategic planning skills, marketing skills and much more to have your own successful freelance business.
Thankfully, you can enroll in the following course that will teach you everything and you don’t even need a degree for it.
Course Name:
Start a Freelance Business: Take Back Your Freedom Now!
What You’ll Learn:
- Become a highly paid freelancer even if you have no degree, no experience, and no portfolio.
- Best platforms for freelancing and how to get started.
- Freelance interview techniques that help you earn more sales.
- The secret to creating full-time income from home or anywhere & much more.
12. Mobile App Development
Skill Description
If you have ever wondered how smartphone apps and games are made, then learning to program using modern programming languages is your answer.
A few websites like Codecademy & FreeCodeCamp offers free courses, but if you need full-fledged courses to learn mobile app development, enrolling in a paid course is the right choice.
Once you know how to develop mobile apps, you can either offer your services to businesses or create your own apps.
Having your own apps lets you monetize them with ads & you can even offer subscriptions to make money on autopilot.
Course Name:
iOS 13 & Swift 5 – The Complete iOS App Development Bootcamp
What You’ll Learn
- Build any app you want
- Work with Apple’s latest UI Framework – SwiftUI
- Start your own app-based business
- Master creating Augmented Reality apps using Apple’s new ARKit & much more
13. Blogging
Skill Description
Blogging is one of the most profitable skills on this list. Not only it can change your life completely, but it can also give you a lot of freedom.
You will be your own boss and you can work from any part of the world as long as you have access to the internet.
Through blogging, you can make money from advertisements, affiliate marketing, offering courses, offering services & much more.
If you’re someone who is looking for shortcuts or doesn’t want to work hard, blogging isn’t for you. It is not a quick rich scheme and you will need at least six months to see some results.
Course Name:
Blogging Masterclass: How To Build A Successful Blog In 2020
What You’ll Learn
- Discover a profitable blogging niche
- Develop a system to plan new content, and generate lots of ideas
- Optimize your website for search engines
- Develop the mindset of a successful blogger
- Build a profitable business around your content and turn your blog into a revenue-generating asset & much more
14. Save Money
Skill Description:
Overspending your money is not good unless you are rich.
Many people don’t know how to control their spending, and they end up in debt. So, when an emergency comes up? They end up borrowing money from their friends and family thus increasing more debt.
Saving money is not as easy as it sounds because it takes effort, practice, and some money-saving skills.
These skills help you to track your money, save more and spend less. If you really want to control your spending, then learning this skill will be a life savior for you.
Course Name:
Budgeting: How To Save Money by Eliminating Spending Leaks
What You’ll Learn
- Save money by learning to control your spending
- Finding and eliminating the excess spending
15. Dog Training
Skill Description:
- Dog training is a skill that combines knowledge of animal behavior with practical teaching skills.
- To train a dog, you should have patience, consistency, and excellent communication skills.
- If you love dogs and want to teach them good behavior and companionship, learning this skill is a must.
Course Name:
DOG BEHAVIOR & DOG TRAINING: Fix Problems & Animal Behavior
What You’ll Learn
Most important dog obedience commands – SIT, DOWN, STAY, COME, INSIDE, LEAVE IT, HEEL
Basics when you train your puppy or an adult dog
Socializing your dog & much more
16. Dropshipping
Skill Description:
Dropshipping is a very profitable online business you can start with less investment. It is a business model where you buy and sell products without stocking the items yourself.
In fact, when a dropshipping store gets an order, it procures the item from a third party and ships directly to the customer.
To get started, all you have to do is set up the retail website, find customers, and handle customer support.
You don’t have to worry about the inventory and shipping as it’s done by the third party. Thus reducing a lot of headaches compared to the standard retail model.
Course Name:
The Complete Shopify Aliexpress Dropship course
What You’ll Learn
- Skills you need to build a PROFITABLE eCommerce store
- Decide what to sell
- Understanding the target audience & much more
17. Travel Writing
Skill Description
Travel writing is writing about your experience while traveling. You can write about the places, persons, things, how to travel, when to travel, and all sorts of traveling advice.
If you are an avid traveler and want to share your expertise and experience with people around the world, then travel writing is the best choice.
For this, you can start your own blog where you can share your experience with people through content and pictures. You can even write content for traveling sites and get paid for it.
Course Name:
Travel Writing: Explore the World & Publish Your Stories!
What You’ll Learn
- How to write professional-quality travel tales that readers will love
- Master writing techniques that will hook readers right away
- Write dialogue that sounds natural and believable
- Learn the two big mistakes that keep beginning freelance writers from getting published & much more
18. Hip Hop Dancing
Skill Description:
Hip Hop dancing needs no introduction, as everyone knows about it. It is a dance style usually danced to hip-hop music which evolved from the hip-hop culture.
If you love dancing or want to learn to dance, then Hip Hop is one of the best. Though it requires a lot of practice to perfect your moves, it’s worth your time. Having a great sense of rhythm can really help you to learn hip-hop much faster.
Once you master it, you can start your own YouTube channel to show your dancing skills to millions of people or even amaze your friends.
Course Name:
Hip Hop Dance For Beginners
What You’ll Learn
- how to perform without a boring facial expression
- Understand basic hip hop grooves, movement, and footwork
- Understand basic 8 counts & much more
Final Thought
Well, these are some cool & useful skills to learn that can add value to your life. You can even explore more on Udemy if you have some free time.
All you have to do is choose a skill and start working on it for the next one month. Spend at least 30-60 minutes each day to learn and practice them.
Over time, you can craft those skills to make some passive income or you can use it as a part of your hobby.
So, “Which skill are you going to try first?” Drop your comments.
Source: lifezeazy
