My tactics for constant learning (#3)
Tags: Productivity, Improvement, Life Lessons, Training, Learning

For me learning is interesting. I love understanding new things and find ways to apply the theory in practice. My current family situation doesn’t leave me the time I used to have so I have had to rethink my ways. Here are some of my tactics for learning. I hope you will find them useful.

Passion projects

I make time for my passion projects. These are things that I really enjoy, but I am not paid, to do.

One project of mine is to run Dungeons and Dragons games for a group of friends. I create the stories, characters and worlds for our games in addition to just running the games. The D&D is a powerful and fun way to get better at creative problem solving and improvisation, which are both valued skills in the modern work market.

I also write fiction. My project is to write a series of bedtime stories for our son. I also have this “bedtime story world”, which is basically a mutually explorative way for us to have adventures in a fictional world (instead of typical bedtime stories). A physical map is a key artefact in this.

Both gaming and writing encourages me to learn more general knowledge like history and culture. But it has made me interested in topics like diplomacy and power politics as well.

Experiments

For me experimenting is a mindset. I don’t think of things set in stone. I rather think everything as experiments. Some experiments take years while others just days or hours to complete. I actively experiment and try new things at work and at home and then reflect on the results. When I am working with a peer, we spar each other daily and discuss afterwards pros and cons of our performance with the client.

The takeaway with experimentation mindset is, that it makes you to learn about everything you do as it becomes a habit.

Teach others

A one role of my job is to coach and teach. Teaching is an excellent way to get better in the subject matter (and also as a teacher). I highly recommend starting to train your colleagues. Not only it is useful, it is also fun. If you need to sell this idea to your employer, Google, for example, has great material about peer-training and its benefits.

Audiobooks

I like reading, but with the new-born, I don’t have the time I used to have. I utilised my commute for reading. I cannot get focused on reading a book in a crowded bus, so I decided to try audiobooks. I use BookBeat which was available in my country and has a good enough selection of books. I can easily listen to 90 minutes per day. I use the 2x speed for the books. This way I can easily listen to one or two books per week. (And this is only the commute.)

I listen to a lot of books with wide array of topics. Alongside professional literature I intentionally listen to topics, that are not of my typical interests. However, every time I choose a book, I want to learn something from it. It is never just a “soundtrack”. I write or type down the key learnings as I listen to the book and then reflect on these new ideas during my journal writing (next tactic).

Journaling

I write a daily journal. I started this habit first about three years ago, but I stopped. It became too goal-oriented and started to feel like “work”. I started again last spring when our baby was born. This time I used entirely different approach. My only goal was just to write something every day. Whatever came to my mind in the evening, I would type it down. Sometimes it is just a sentence, but sometimes I write many paragraphs. It takes at minimum a minute or two so there’s no excuse for me to skip it. At longest it has been an hour-long reflection at the evening before going to sleep.

The habit has stuck, and it has been a good thing. For instance, this tactic has helped me during a difficult period I had with my previous employer, giving me a way to organise my feelings in a more structured way. This led me to make a difficult, but right decision. Actually, after this event I started to analyse every major decision I made or was about to make. The journal is a key part of that process.

I use Evernote for the journal. I create a separate notebook for each year and daily entries as pages. I use keywords for things I want to find easier later. Some examples of these are in-depth reflections, family retrospectives or key family events.

Run retrospectives about everyday things

Being a parent is new to us and we have faced all sorts of typical things. We run retrospectives about parenthood and daily stuff with my wife. A retrospective is a moment of day, usually after the baby has fallen into sleep, when we just sit down and discuss about a topical issue for us and find a way forward together. This has been an objective way to discuss about things, which would have earlier ended up in arguments.

We use a simple formula. We discuss and write down what is the current reality with the issue. Then we define how we would want it to be. After this we decide the experiments, we believe would lead to the wanted outcome. Then, depending on the issue, we follow up it on daily or weekly basis until we agree that the issue has been resolved.

The retrospectives have made it easier for us to change our mindset, alter our personal habits and improve the quality of everyday life.

Meditation

I am no expert in meditation, so you might have different conception what it is. I do two kinds of mediation. A breathing exercise before going to sleep and something I call the study of mind (study meaning a room for working).

I run to meditate. Especially I like the 60 minutes runs, where I can spend a short sprint in my “study of the mind”. It is a state of mind, where I enter while running. I do a lot of work or hobby related things in there. For instance, I drafted several of these first blog postings while working in there. It is a bit difficult to explain. One day I decided to experiment how to combine working with a passion project and running. I want to stay in shape, but I need to make time for the projects. In this situation I had to pick one. So instead I decided to do the both at the same time. I decided the topics and goals for me before the run. This time I wanted to create four character for one of my stories. Then I started running and I came up with this mental model, that I am now working in this very comfy but inspiring study. While in there I focused on the characters. I kept running in auto-pilot mode and kept working with the characters. 60 minutes later I arrived at our front door and the characters were done. After the shower I wrote the things down.

I have also started to have “headspace” before falling in sleep. This is an experiment and basically an example of tactic number two. I have used the free Oak app for this. So far it has felt good and I fall to sleep easier. I track my sleep quality with my phone and watch and this mediation done before falling to sleep has increased my sleep quality 12%. The sample is still small, but so far, the experiment looks promising. I also feel much more relaxed before sleeping.

Write notes

I write notes all the time. Some notes I use for reflecting later, some I just use to focus on the subject at hand. I use both pen & paper and digital.