Learning Nerd’s Diary #37
Welcome back Learning Nerds!
👀 Sneak peak
Here is what I have in store for you this week -
💭 Learning About Learning: Binge Learning
🥜 Learning Nugget: Relay vs Tug of War
💥 Coolest Things I Learnt This Week: Theory of Constraints
🔦 Spotlight: L&D Strategy Playbook
Let's jump right in!
💭 Binge Learning
Binge eating is defined as “The consumption of large quantities of food in a short period of time”. Now replace food with knowledge and that’s what binge learning is.
I binge learn as much as the next person:
I start books without finishing old ones
I get excited and enrol myself for multiple courses
I go down a Twitter/ newsletter rabbit hole
And while it can seem that it’s great that we can learn so much in such little time, it’s actually counterintuitive in many ways. Just like Binge eating is not good for the body, binge learning too is not good for the brain -
By cramming so much in little time, we think we’re learning but often we don’t remember what we’ve learnt
Learning is more than information consumption. It’s also about application - and that requires time and practice
Here are 3 ways to stop Binge Learning:
1/ Create a Learning Charter 🏔
Create a roadmap for all the things you want to learn - both personally and professionally. I usually do this at the beginning of the year and revisit it every quarter but pick whatever atomic unit works for you. It’s important to remember that what you need to learn is also constantly evolving so feel free to add/ modify/ edit things you’ve added in the charter. Before you decide to learn anything new, check out the charter - it will help you stay in the right direction.
2/ Define your why ⁉️
For every new thing you learn it’s important to define your purpose for it. A simple framework to use for this is -
“I want to learn <Insert what you’re learning> so that I can <Insert why> in order to <Insert the change/ delta this will cause for you>”
By aligning on the why before you start will help you make the right choices when it comes to your learning journey - What should you learn? How should you learn? These are all important questions to answer but after you align on the why
3/ Breathe in AND breathe out 🫁
Learning is more than consumption. Most of the time we focus only on consuming content or breathing in but creation or breathing out is equally important. This could be through note taking, reflecting on your experience, writing an article, having a conversation or creating an artefact. This is a stage of convergence - you are making sense of what you learn by applying it in your context.
By focussing on both breathing in and breathing out - you’ll be able to keep yourself in check when it comes to binge learning.
🥜 Relay vs Tug of War
What if peer learning was a relay and not a tug of war?
How would that affect how learners contribute?
💥 Coolest Things I Learnt this Week
Theory of Constraints
I came across this article in David Perell's Friday Finds that says -
The only way to improve the overall performance of the system is to improve the output at the bottleneck (or more broadly, the performance of the constraint).
Learning has bottlenecks too. It could be that concept that you can't understand no matter how hard you try, or that dish you can't perfect in the kitchen or a movement at the gym that seems easy enough but not for you.
As learning experience designers - once of the best things we can do is help learners identify those bottlenecks for themselves and help them improve there.
Transformation takes time
Incase you needed to hear this today!
🔦 Spotlight
I've been working on an L&D Strategy Blueprint with a group of amazing co-creators for the L&D Shakers. It’s been an amazing 6 months and I’m super excited to see this project almost coming to an end!
Can't wait to share more here :)
Gif credits: Anamaria Dorgo
Love & Learning
Until we meet next week!
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