What Did You Learn Today?

What do you write when you don’t know what to write?

This is similar to the concept of what to do when you don’t know what to do.

On my list of daily dozen activities in my April adventure are posting to this blog and writing down 3 things I’m grateful for in the last 24 hours.

Today I wasn’t sure what to blog about. It was a full day of meetings on highly disparate topics that involved many different people. I started to synthesize it all.

Then a thought occurred to me. What if I changed “what am I grateful for?” to “what did I learn today?”

Here goes.

An editorial calendar is a must to sustain daily blogging. It’s easier to post daily when I know in advance what I’m going to write about. When planning for a particularly busy day, I outline and start drafting a post the night before. But I’ve learned this month that an editorial calendar is even more important.

Collaborative work spaces help build relationships and momentum. Visiting a company location with an open-environment workspace this week reminded me of the value of face-to-face interactions. I moved around the floor between meetings and sat in high-traffic areas. At least 3 chance conversations helped accelerate some of the projects I’m working on.

People will share the most fascinating things if you ask questions and listen. Today was a lot about asking questions and hearing what a variety of people had to say. Now I’m synthesizing all of that input, identifying areas where more information would be valuable and doing follow-up actions.

No one has all the answers. Often in life, there’s no single right answer. There are a range of options, all with upsides and downsides. Talking with a lot of people helps generate additional options. It also reinforces that we’re all figuring things out as we go along. But working together, we’re stronger.

Be humble. This is one of the most important learnings through my career pivot. Often I’m researching concepts that are new to me or asking others a lot of questions. It’s part of being bad first that Erika Andersen articulated in her book of the same name. And it sure is humbling. Yet I’m also humbled by how generous and patient people are with sharing their expertise and perspectives.

What did you learn today?