The hardest part about lockdown for me has been the lack of motivation, inspiration and creativity. This is why I joined Skillshare at the beginning of May and started looking at the vast range of courses available.

If you don’t already know, Skillshare is an online learning community for teachers and students, with thousands of classes for creatives, including illustration, design, photography, videography, freelancing, creative writing and many more.

Why I Joined Skillshare During Lockdown

I mentioned on the blog at the beginning of the year that I had hoped to do more courses focusing on creative writing and photography, I obviously wasn’t able to head out and spend time in classrooms, but now with the restrictions of being at home for weeks on end it seemed to be the perfect opportunity to find something different to focus on.

You Can Learn Whatever You Want

You really can find a course for any interest, whether you want to learn Affiliate Marketing for Beginners, Travel Street Photography, Adobe Lightroom, and Creative Writing.

Whatever your interest, there is a course for you.

You Can Learn Whenever You Want

If you were to take a course in a classroom you would be fixed to a schedule, every course here is online which means you can learn whenever you want. You could do an hour in the morning, an hour in the evening, spend a whole weekend, stay at home, and even sit in a coffee shop.

You can take as long as you like, you can pause it for a coffee and even rewind and replay any parts that you want to go through again.

You’re Joining a Community

Each course comes with its own small community, below each video is an area where you can discuss the course and its contents with the teacher and other students. Each course also provides a space for “projects” this allows you to post photos and videos or your own personal progress, this can be great for the teacher to see how you are getting on but also for other students to see what progress they may make during the duration of the course.

You’re Supporting Individual Creatives

I’ve mentioned many times before that whether I’m at home or travelling, I always try to make a priority out of supporting small, local and independent businesses.

The majority of the teachers on Skillshare are freelance creatives, self employed or those who want to turn their hobby into a full time business.

This is where you can help. By taking their courses you will be supporting individual people as they build their businesses.

Join Skillshare for £84 per year

(with a two month free trial)

If you’re unsure about whether you really want to sign up then opt for the free trial and spend some time looking at short courses and introductions.

The premium plan is for those who want to take their learning further and for a more extended period. There are many options available in the premium plan; you can make it according to affordability.

If pay on a monthly basis then the price is $15 (around £12,) but if you purchase the annual membership you can save up to 45%, and the cost will be $8.25$ per month (around £7.00)

With other companies you could pay £84.00 for a single day’s workshop. To put this into context, you could take a different course every month, learn new skills, advance current ones, or turn your hobby into a money-making business, all for the price of a Netflix subscription.

Have you taken any online courses recently?

Are you tempted to join Skillshare?

Let me know in the comments.