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The Invisible Mentor Weekly Newsletter: Brain Food Wednesdays Number 96: How to Find Time to Learn Career Skills
Dear Reader,
You keep reading that you need to invest in lifelong learning. And you agree that’s important. However, you’re struggling to add another thing to your already over-scheduled day. You’re unsure of how to find the time to learn career skills that will allow you to stay employable. You see the rapid changes happening in the world around you, but what to do?
Years ago, I decided to get an informal liberal arts education. I kept on hearing that the most creative people have a liberal arts education. So, I decided to test it for myself. All the courses I took were free, except for one that I bought from the Great Courses. I decided that first thing in the morning would work best for me. From 6:00 am – 8:30 am, I was at my desk taking courses every day. I did this for close to a year. I learned so much during that time.
What made this work so well for me, was that I scheduled the time to learn, at a time that was optimal for me — first thing in the morning. What I noticed about myself was that I liked lectures that were about an hour in length. I would watch about two lectures each morning and I took notes. I didn’t like courses with short videos that were under 15 minutes. I found that I was unable to sink my teeth into the content.
The bottom line is that you have to find a system for you that works. These days, I read nonfiction books in the mornings as part of my personal and professional development plan. In the new year, I’ll incorporate courses into my professional development routine. I have courses that I’ve bought from the Great Courses that I haven’t taken yet. Additionally, I want to take a couple of writing courses to become better at my craft.
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Ask Avil
How to Find Time to Learn Career Skills
Before you’ll invest time doing anything, you have to think that it’s worth your time. Your time is a premium resource. Look at where you are right now in your career. What skills do you need to position you for your next role? If you’re a small business owner or an entrepreneur, what skills do you need to take your business to the next level? Do you have a shortage of ideas to grow the business? Do you need to learn how to sell? How good are you at pitching and negotiating?
Answering these important questions will help you to determine what career skills you need to learn. Based on different future of jobs research, below you’ll find a few skills I came up with. You don’t have to use my list of career skills to decide what skills to acquire.
- Complex Problem-Solving
- Critical Thinking and Analysis
- Creativity, Innovation, Ideation, Originality, and Initiative
- People Management
- Collaboration
- Emotional Intelligence
- Negotiation
- Judgment, Reasoning, Analytical Thinking, and Decision Making
- Active Learning and Learning Strategies
- Resilience,
- Stress tolerance
- Flexibility
You know what skills you need to learn, but there is still that problem of finding the time. The best place to start is to create a time log for two weeks. Record how you spend all your time. Include time you spend on social media, as well as time you spend waiting. When you have the results of how you spend your time, look at each activity to determine which ones take you closer to your goals.
There are times when you have to do things that don’t take you closer to your goal. That’s a fact of life, so don’t sweat it. But you’ll also discover pockets of time that you can use for your personal and professional development. Schedule learning into your day and don’t leave it up to chance. The same time every day is preferable because you know what to expect, and you’re prepared to learn.
Reading List
I’m reading multiple books on leadership and self-leadership. I’m finding the process of reading multiple books at the same time difficult. But I’m sticking with it. Since Love Leadership and Self-Leadership are short books, I focused on them one at a time, so I’ve read them already. The books I’m reading right now that I want to finish by Friday are The Leadership Gap, The Score Takes Care of Itself, Launching a Leadership Revolution and Business Model Shifts.
Next week, I’ll be able to tell you exactly how things went and if I’ll be going through the process again.
Reading List
- The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison, and Craig Walsh
- Self-Leadership by Ryan Reed
- The Leadership Gap by Lolly Daskal
- Love Leadership by John Hope Bryan
- Brave Leadership, Kimberly Davis
- How Women Rise, Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith
- Business Model Shifts by Patrick van der Pijl , Justin Lokitz
- Launching a Leadership Revolution by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward
- The Invincible Company by Alexander Osterwalder , Yves Pigneur
- Love-Based Business Models by Shawn Driscoll
- Why Leadership Sucks by Miles Anthony Smith, Book 1
- Why Leadership Sucks by Miles Anthony Smith, Book 2
- Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo
- The Airbnb Story: How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions . . . and Created Plenty of Controversy by Leigh Gallagher
- Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Nick Bilton
- Levers: The Framework for Building Repeatability into Your Business by Amos Schwartzfarb
- Five Stars: The Communication Secrets to Get from Good to Great by Carmine Gallo
- I Got There: How a Mixed-Race Kid Overcame Racism, Poverty, and Abuse to Arrive at the American Dream by JT McCormick
- One Big Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do by Phil Howard Cooke
The Invisible Mentor Blog
Blog Posts
How to Find the Time to Develop Life Skills
Career Skills to Learn to Succeed in the New World of Work
Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte, Book Summary and Review
The One Problem
I’ve published 35 podcast episodes already. Some topics are in books I’ve read. So, I’m thinking of adding the podcast videos to book summaries where appropriate. I think this will add more value for my readers and clients.
- Gabriella O’Rourke, Business Consultant, Borden Ladner Gervais
- Stefanie Booker Atchison, Wisdom Coach & Motivational Speaker
- Michelle Griffin, Founder Brandthority, Building Your Personal Brand
- Donna Knutson, Founder of Write Journeys
- Sophie Gray, Founder of DiveThru: Being Disconnected from Yourself
- The One Problem Interview with Lois McGuire, Author
- The One Problem Interview with Roberta Liebenberg, Senior Law Partner
- The One Problem Interview: Angela Payne, Founder Leed HR
- The One Problem Interview: Rose-marie Fernandez, Founder Coaching Worx
- The One Problem Interview: Reverend, Dr Cheri DiNovo
- The One Problem Interview: Hillary Sobel, Lawyer
- The One Problem: Janet Zaretsky, BS Brilliance Master
- The One Problem: Julie Foucht, Art of Feminine Marketing
- The One Problem: Evelyn Jerome Alexander, Magellan College Counseling
- The One Problem Interview with Rosalin Krieger, The Unstucker
- The One Problem Interview: Tetyana Dudnyk, Director, Technology Project Management Office
Product Alert
7 Day Reading Makeover Challenge
This is an affordable program. It will help you to get started on leadership reading. Leaders read to learn what they need to know. You’ll also learn how to synthesize information.
Art of Learning Membership Site
How would you like to access the best, most useful information I have, that’s better than book summaries? Buy monthly access to the Bookish Note that’s behind my paywall. I group Bookish Notes together by a common theme, turning them into a course. Imagine reading themed Bookish Notes and starting to lay the foundation for a new skill.
Until Next Week,
Avil Beckford, Founder, The Invisible Mentor!