EYN#061: New Year New Things To Learn …. But Focus.

I love the idea of the university of third age.  No matter how old you are, how much experience you have, the battle scars you've gained - there are still things to learn.

Learning keeps you sharp, keeps you motivated and keeps you up to date with the fast changing world.

But learning for learnings sake can be a bit pointless.  And I say this as someone who loves to learn.  The problem is,  if you don't use it you lose it.  Learning random stuff at a superficial level can be a bit of a waste of time.  It goes in one ear and out the other.

What I've found is far more effective is to pick something you really want to improve and focus on it.

So I tried a different approach: 

•  Focus - Pick a topic that's important to me
• Learn - Learn the theory
• Practice - Apply the learning, fail and course correct
• Reinforce - Refresh on topics when you need them

Less topics, more focus, more practice, more execution.

So how did I do it:

• Prioritise the topics to learn.
• Find some authors/coaches/creators that resonated with me
• Read that book/watched the videos
• Put the learning into practice
• Actually used the thing I've learnt
• Failed, course corrected and learnt more
• Refreshed on topics, just in time when I need them in the future when I've forgotten stuff

It's worked really well for me and I've developed a new set of skills that I never thought I would.  Skills that I use every day to run my own business.

It worked so well for me, that I designed the entire Technical Storytelling Professional program around it.

The program is for people that really need to influence stakeholders, make the complex simple and drive action.

So how did I design the program?

• Phase 1: Teach the Technical Storytelling theory interactively over 5 weeks.
• Phase 2: Run practical workshops for people to practice, fail and improve in a safe space.
• Phase 3: Share video on demand lessons for reinforcement in the future.

And I've worked with hundreds of people since I created the program and received amazing feedback.

So whether it's Technical Storytelling, or another topic that's important to you or your team.  Focus on a topic and commit to it this year.  Focus, learn, practice and reinforce.

Hope this helps

Ben