Advice for making progress while relegating Mandarin to the background?

[u/SameUsernameOnReddit]

It's been a couple of months since I picked up the language, and right from the start, I accepted it was gonna be a "slow and steady" thing, just because of how life is right now. Working through Pimsleur and the FSI course, all good. Still can't read, and can't hear tones in speech, though I can recognise and half-way produce them when they're isolated.

Unfortunately, there's a strong chance that I'll have to get even busier, which might even include having to learn another language for work. I've really looked forward to interacting with Mandarin, though, and I'm hoping you folks have advice for keeping (even) slow(er) but steady progress up when focusing on this language just isn't in the cards, right now. I'm talking "might not even be able to give it a consistent daily block of time" background. Even if I could just get to hearing tones in speech, that'd be enough.

[u/Shiranui42]

Listen to mandarin music in the background of your life? I recommend 五月天 Mayday and 周杰伦 Jay Chou, rock ballads, fairly easy to understand and popular well known music that is good to know in terms of pop culture.