An Economist article that I mentioned in a previous post really confirmed a growing belief within me that lifelong learning will become a permanent fixture in our working lives – put simply: instead of relying on formal education to provide today’s knowledge workers with the bulk of their skill acquisition, with the occasional stint of professional training and new roles to augment the process, soon all knowledge workers will be required to update this knowledge with greater regularity that ever before. This is something that may of us are doing for fun already. It’s the concept that some personal development experts call CAN-I or “constant and never-ending improvement” and I refer to as Perpetual Beta – the state of being in constant learning (and performance) mode.
So as you could imagine, I have a learning agenda of my own. I see it as a set of focus areas that are important to focus on, in order to do all the things I have set out to do – it looks like this:
So now’s the time for me to show you my workings:
‘Hard’ skills are those needed to stay on top of trends and sharpen my skills as a planner. For this purpose I have a reading list of awesome planning blogs, which is available on OpenStrategy. Last autumn I set myself a target of going to two educational networking events or meetings with experts in my field per month – a process which has been very fruitful and I shall continue. Expect to find out about some of these in later posts.
For ‘Soft’ skills it’s got to be:
- Toastmasters – a public speaking club where attendees get to work on their presenting and leadership skills. If you love presenting and want to sharpen your skills further, you really can’t get better in my opinion given the level of investment required. It’s crammed with entrepreneurs, people who have taken on new roles that require a lot of client contact, as well as professions that are entirely reliant on presenting such as tutors, motivational speakers and actors.
- I’m also doing a course called Top Performer – something that was recommended to me by Cal Newport, after I asked about ways to optimise my career. It’s full for this year, and it’s a fascinating course – it’s really good for keeping you outside of your comfort zone. I’ll share more about this in subsequent posts.
Habits are a vital focus area for me too. Last year I read Cal’s book, Deep Work, which inspired me to change a number of things about my ways of working. In particular the idea of curating my environment to support deeper learning. It may seem crazy to some that as a marketer, I don’t keep the Facebook app on my phone, instead I download the app to access a work Facebook account if I need to look at ad formats, and follow competitor brands, and I’ve done the same thing to Instagram. Since doing so my mind feels more free, and not as clogged up with ‘information junk’ – and I use it a lot less in my personal time. Taking regular screen breaks and writing out problems on my notepad enables deeper thinking but also stops me from getting headaches.
The final (and you might also say vital) piece of the puzzle is mindset. Getting out for runs helps greatly, as I’m a terrible meditator! Mindful walks are good for the thinking process, as is rock climbing. Jim Rohn said “Take care of your body. It is the only place you have to live” and this is something I am working on a lot more too.