by Caroline Leach | Apr 2, 2016 | Change, Learning, Social Media, Work/Life
A new day, month and season always feel like a fresh start. Brand new beginnings. Endless possibilities ahead.
As I reflected on the daily dozen habits I set last year, I’d done well on some and not on others.
So why not commit the month of April to doing my full daily dozen every day? How much can I accomplish? How will I feel? How much more will I enjoy life?
It will be an April Adventure. It’s the perfect time because spring is my favorite season. The days are longer. Time stretches out. Nature beckons. Summer is on the way.
April is also a transitional time. It’s my birthday at the end of the month, which always prompts reflection. My daughter will choose her college this month. And then it’s on to the whirl of AP exams, the prom and high school graduation for the coda of the season.
Listening to Adam Grant‘s TED talk about original thinkers this morning during a car trip for a college visit with my son gave me 4 things to think about.
- Improvers do better than first movers. Grant’s talk referenced a classic study of 50 product categories. It showed a 47% failure rate among first movers. Those who improved on the ideas of others had only an 8% failure rate.
- There’s a sweet spot for creativity halfway between pre-crastination (doing things too early to maximize creativity and efficiency) and procrastination (this one needs no explanation).
- Doubt the default. Or, question the status quo. According to Grant’s research, people who do this and ask if there’s a better way perform better in their jobs, and they stay in them 15% longer.
- What distinguishes classical composers is that they produced more work. They generated more music and more ideas. That meant there was more to choose from in identifying their best work.
That inspired my idea to post to this blog daily in April. It can be of any length. And by writing daily, I may come up with at least one post to share for feedback in Penelope Trunk‘s upcoming Quistic course about writing great blog posts.
To round it out, I’m making it a baker’s dozen with habit #13: using my Rosetta Stone app to learn Spanish for 10 minutes every day. Here I’m inspired by something I read recently about someone who learned a language by devoting just a few minutes every day.
So what am I doing differently to set up my environment for success?
First, I made a daily dozen list in my Any.Do app. While I’ve had it for a while, I haven’t used it much yet. This is my accountability app. And I’ll continue tracking my activity and sleep with my Fitbit.
Second, I’m thinking about how to use time in new ways. What’s the best way to make the most of commute time? Lunch time? Wait time?
Right now I’m writing this on my iPhone while my husband drives us home from our college visit. Turns out I don’t have to be at home settled in with my laptop to write every blog post.
It’s amazing what technology and connectivity can do for our lives and our ability to learn. It shouldn’t be too hard how to figure out how to insert hyperlinks and images on my phone.
Game on for an April Adventure!
by Caroline Leach | Apr 1, 2016 | Careers, Corporate Communications, Learning, Marketing & Analytics
Who doesn’t love binge watching a favorite show?
Whether it’s Game of Thrones or Billions, watching multiple episodes in a single sitting makes the experience more intense, rewarding and fun.
That’s a fun part of working for at the company that provides DIRECTV. Whether it’s the DIRECTV app or a programmer app with the subscription, it’s easy to stream great content on a mobile device.
It got me thinking about how binge watching might apply to online learning. Could it make learning more effective? More efficient? How about more fun?
And why was I pondering this question?
A Fortune 10 CEO was recently quoted in the New York Times on reskilling people for the future. “There is a need to retool yourself,” he said, “and you should not expect to stop. People who do not spend 5 to 10 hours a week in online learning will obsolete themselves with the technology.”
(Full disclosure: I work for this great company. Opinions in this blog are my own.)
While it’s true that small steps add up to big changes, it’s possible to accelerate learning by binge viewing great online courses.
As an example, for professional certifications that require ongoing education, binge viewing online courses is highly effective.
Why?
- It eliminates the inefficiencies of starting and stopping courses.
- It amplifies learning by increasing the ability to see patterns and make connections between seemingly disparate concepts and information.
- And a significant amount of learning can be completed in a relatively short time, fueling more motivation to seek out further coursework.
As I rectify my accreditations in public relations and human resources every 3 years, this strategy has made ongoing learning more efficient and more fun.
And it’s worked well for a series of marketing essentials courses I co-created with colleagues in my new career role. And for several weeks my action-item list has included “complete this series of online courses.” But somehow it didn’t happen. Until today. And here’s why.
Schedule time. The 5 online courses I need to complete are 90 minutes each, totaling 7.5 hours. Have you ever found a full day without meetings that you could commit to online learning?
Earlier this week I looked at my schedule and saw I had a few open late afternoon hours on a Friday. So I booked it for 2 online courses. Which then became 3, as I was pulled into the reward of completing course after course.
It was much easier to click into that next course as long as I was already online, in a comfortable place, and with a few hours of time I’d blocked out.
Make yourself comfortable. Maybe there’s a comfortable chair in your workspace. Or a standing desk. Or even a treadmill desk. What would make the environment even better? Your favorite coffee beverage? A healthy snack?
Focus on the course. Find a quiet place. Close your door if you have one. Turn off email and text notifications and other sounds on mobile devices.
Enjoy the experience of focusing intently on only one thing. Research shows that humans can’t multitask anyway, as much as we delude ourselves into thinking that we can.
Write notes on key points. Listen for 3 key takeaways. There’s magic in the number 3. It focuses your thought processes and forces you to prioritize what you heard and saw.
Taking notes on those key points helps to solidify the learning, especially if you hand write them. And you have something you can quickly refer to when you want to refresh your learning.
Take one immediate action. Of those 3 key points, what’s one thing you can put into action right away?
As part of my PR recertification, I listened to an IABC webinar on the art of social media by Guy Kawasaki. That’s how I discovered Canva. It makes anyone, including me, into a graphic designer. Many of the images in this blog are from Canva.
Given the need for all of us to prepare for our next career, why not binge watch your way to a new skill?
by Caroline Leach | Mar 25, 2016 | Change, Learning
Solving problems often involves coming up with new ideas. How can you use data to make better decisions? How can you better engage your team at work? How can you find more meaning in your life?
Yet coming up with new ideas can feel daunting at times. After all, is there anything new under the sun?
Here are a few ideas to get your creative thoughts flowing.
What problem are you trying to solve? Start with what you’re trying to accomplish. Make sure your problem statement is well defined. This question has become a perennial favorite ever since I took a McKinsey & Company course called Strategy 101 at DIRECTV.
What would success look like? This takes a page from Stephen Covey‘s principle to begin with the end in mind. What perfect or better world state could exist? What is lacking today that would make the world a better place? If you can imagine it, then you can create it.
How many ideas can you come up with? Start by making a list of 10 ideas. Save the judgments for later. Just jot down ideas as quickly as you can. Then explore them further to see how they could play out to solve the problem you’re tackling. What would you have to do to make them work?
What new connections can you make? Many groundbreaking ideas take two seemingly disparate areas and connect them. Think Steve Jobs with computers and calligraphy. Nate Silver with economics and baseball. Alli Webb with beauty and blowouts.
How can you expose yourself to new concepts? What are you reading? If you mainly read non-fiction, try fiction. If you read business magazines, try something in the sciences. Check out a new report from the Institute for the Future. Listen to a TED talk or playlist.
Who’s in your network? How diverse is your network? Get to know some new people, especially cross generationally. That’s one of the things I love about the TV show Younger – the friendships across generations, with different perspectives on life.
How can you vary your routine? Our brains crave novelty and variety. So drive a different way to work. Take up a new sport. Go on an artist’s date (with thanks to Julia Cameron for that fun and fabulous way to “restock the well” of creative thinking). Think about what you usually do, and consciously do something else.
This week, on a family vacation, we mixed up our routine. We watching our son’s team play baseball in beautiful San Diego. We met new parents and players on the team. We tried new restaurants.
My husband and I went to a new yoga class we’ve been wanting to attend. We went paddle boarding and tried to figure out how to navigate the waves beyond the marina where we’ve been learning.
I dipped into The Economist‘s newly revised magazine, 1843. I learned fascinating things about the resurgence of stoicism, corporate campus design and why we work so hard.
And a David Brooks column in the New York Times led me to a fascinating new book by Barbara Bradley Hagerty about Life Reimagined.
My Connecticut family is visiting for my daughter’s big event this weekend honoring her service through National Charity League.
Today will be a group artist date, with a trip to the endlessly inspiring Getty Center.
And I’m looking forward to a learning week ahead at work, with our annual leadership program.
What will you do differently today to see the world from a fresh perspective?
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