Continuous Learning & Development

In my recent post I introduced you to filters as a great way to filter out what you really need to learn.

Now I found an excellent example of a filter for language learning by Timothy Ferris in his blog post: How to learn (but not master) Any Language in 1 Hour (Plus: A Favor).

With this Filter what he calles Deconstructing a langugae Timothy determines the likelihood of becoming fluent in a language in the next to two to twelcve month.

Timothy Ferris is the best selling author of “The 4-Hour Workweek“.

I have already written one post about the key factors for successfull learning. Learning is a process. And to run a process at optimum yield (speed, outcome,etc.) the best is to focus on the leveraging factors that influence the process most.  In the last post I mentioned the recreation factor to be far more influencial than focusing on the action. Sleep is probably the key recreation factor before anything else. I will write about other recreational factors in another post.

Now what is second most important for the Learning Process ? I call this the learning filter. It is most effective to filter out the noise before learning anything useless. The noise is the information you do not need to learn. Also information that you could retrieve on time when needed (Example Wikipedia). Now how do I build a filter ?
To build a filter seems to be difficult task to do especially if it is a new subject you want to learn.
So how would you know this filter is not filtering out the information you need ?

Steps to build your filter:

1. Analyse

2. Determine the main questions

3. Define your learning outcomes.

4. Build an agenda or a table of content.

1. Analyse 
For every subject there is are the so called standard book, website or experts. This is one of the first steps to take.  I will write a post in more detail soon about this step.

2. Determine the main questions
For every main topic in the book or on the website create the main question that this topic is going answering.

3. Define your learning outcomes
Identify based on the main questions what is the outcome you need.
Example: Question: How to I create a pivot table in Excel 2003 ? Your intended outcome is: Create a pivot table in Excel 2003. Now to get to this outcome there are also certain steps to take - which you would identify and list in step 4.

4. Build an agenda or table of contents
This is now actually the filter. Here you list based on your questions and outcomes what resources you need to identify and collect in order to achieve your outcome. In the above example it would mean to read a certain chapter in a book for example. Also to find an example on the internet or to ask a specific question around pivot tables in a usergroup.
But before you start running first build the agenda. Going of to usergroups to ask a question before you have an overview of the subject will only confuse you as these questions are too specific and often recieve different answers depending on the person who answered understood the question.

We are raised to take action. We create action list, task list, strategies, To Do lists, and tons of best practices. Nowadays time and sleep are our enemies.

Learning is a journey without an end. Learning is not like constructing a house. Once finished you move in and live happily ever after. Learning needs to be continuously repeated. It is an ongoing process.

In my life and especially in my work life I have designed and implemented many processes and I worked with many systems. During this time I came to favour six sigma as a wonderful way to optimize a process. Six sigma a scientific method to optimize processes.
I do not want to write too much about Six sigma here, but I have added literature and links in my references that will provide you with more insight into the topic. The reason for me to mention six sigma here is the search for the leveraging or key factors that have the greatest influence on the result of the learning process.

Often key factors are overlooked especially if we completly focus on action and task lists. The focus is still for many on the amount of time spent on learning. The more I spent time the more I learn is the current belief. And one does not think about recreation enough. And the main factor for good recreation is sleep. Getting the right sleep is probably the most influencial factor on learning. So how can I improve sleeping is something that I will write about in another post, because I am going to sleep now….

(Also I will add my references later)

Good night.

How often have you heard the two words continuous learning in the last years ?

These two words are becoming louder and louder every day for a simple reason:
The way we live and work is changing rapidly. Is it good or is it bad ? This is a question each of us has to answer oneself.

But what I will list here are tips, tricks, tools, techniques and processes that will enhance your continous learning capabilities.

I have spent most of my professional life around continous learning and development.
The last 20 years I have looked at it from different angles. Now it is time to start filling this blog with my research, experiences and lessons learned.

More will follow soon.