Those in technical industries are easily overwhelmed with the plethora of opportunities to learn and use new technologies. I frequently hear people ask how to go about deciding what to learn next. It’s a question I struggled with for a long time too. Combine this with a passion and excitement for learning and you’ll find someone who is constantly juggling…
Tag: learning
The spectrum of expertise
When you treat learning as an investment, you want to minimize unnecessary efforts. With the advent of the internet, learning seemingly became a free endeavor. You can learn just about anything online. And this is a great opportunity. However, it doesn’t come without a cost, albeit non monetary. You have to have an eye for what is and isn’t applicable.…
Tactical institutional learning
Once you come to the realization that learning holds the potential for dramatic organizational improvement and that it should be a part of what people do with the first 40 hours of their week, you might wonder how to get the most out of it. First, let’s differentiate spontaneous learning from intentional learning. Every day you have to look things…
Make it second nature
A natural extension of using mental resets is to establish a mechanism to revisit really important things on a basis appropriate to help make them second nature. Even if retain something after a month, we still risk losing it. If it’s not that important, that’s not a big deal. But if it is, then we need to revisit it. This…
There’s plenty of time in 40 hours to invest in learning on the job
The idea that individuals should invest their own time in learning, and should be expected to work 40+ hours a week is too prevalent. And so are the results, or lack thereof: Employees are mentally sapped from long work weeks, learning isn’t productive. Learning is inconsistent. Individuals with a passion for learning will learn. Others that don’t have a passion…
Mental reset
When you’re engaged in learning, you’re actively cramming information into your short term memory. Whether you intend to or not. As you study you build mental models and understandings of what you’re exposing yourself to. You use this to build relationships and hopefully to align what you’re learning with what you’re trying to accomplish. As you move from study to…
Sleep on it
Stewing on it is a useful mental technique to enhance learning. But sometimes doing something physical in the hopes that things will bubble up from your subconscious isn’t the only way to elicit learning. Another simple way is to put down the books. Learn for a while and then stop. Stop at least for a day. Enough time to sleep…
Stew on it
One way to solidify learning is to give yourself an opportunity to stew on it. Learning leads to forgetting if we don’t find ways to revisit what we’ve learned. Sometimes we don’t have an immediate use for the knowledge. Or an immediate way we can experiment with the knowledge. In these situations you can still find solace in your mind.…
Find a project
No doubt you have a list of things you hope to get the chance to learn. Perhaps sooner rather than later. But one of the biggest mistakes, and perhaps why you haven’t got to the list yet, is learning without a purpose. Learning for learning’s sake is only followed by forgetting. One of the best purposes for learning is to…
Brute force learning
Imagine someone from 100 years ago was given a modern day computer. Let’s say a laptop. And let’s assume they were intrigued. Without any guidance, they would struggle to learn much. They may not even figure out how to turn it on. Given enough time, one can imagine they might find the power button. One may also imagine they might…