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Education and Time Management
By Jon Menaster | March 31, 2007
Continuing education is very important to me - I certainly don’t believe that my learning finished after I graduated from college. Since I’ve entered the workforce I’ve gotten a new education in a way that could never be taught inside a classroom. However, as often as I can, I endeavor to read new books and listen to new ideas where ever I can find them. Along with that, I also am trying to better manage my time throughout the week. To me, time is everything - with time I can learn, play, relax, socialize, and altogether enjoy my life. Today I’d like to stir up some neurons over the issue of time management and education, specifically how you can use time management to ensure that you never stop learning - and how important that learning will be to your career.
Now there are many people that use time management programs such as Getting Things Done (GTD), but what I’m proposing is a system combining the concept of time management (whichever way you want to do it) with educating yourself about the world around you with the free time you create through excellently managing your time. So to start things off, you need to make sure none of your time is wasted. None of it. Now I understand that everybody needs recreation time to chill and relax (believe me!) so that should be considered a valid use of your time. What I want you to think about is those moments when you’re at home, your buddies have taken off, and you have nothing to do. Maybe you’ll just turn on the TV for an hour or two, flipping through channels in a desperate attempt to keep yourself entertained. Stop! This is the perfect moment to allow you to get started with your education. While there are some education shows on television (Discovery, National Geographic, CSPAN, etc.), the problem with television is that it’s a passive medium, not an active one like reading. If you feel like learning about trade deficits with China, you have to hope that something or someone is talking about it on some channel, which could take a while to find. Now if you instead decided ahead of time what you wanted to learn about (by itemizing a list of relevant topics for your current career and what was important to your life in general), you could use that list to prepare yourself for free time wisely.
Everybody learns differently, so here are a few suggestions for you learners out there.. If you prefer reading, then go take a look at your public library. In Los Angeles, the system is absolutely fabulous, letting you reserve books and send them to whichever library is closest to you. If you’re not sure where to start, let me recommend a few books. The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein is one of the best financial do it yourself books I have ever read (and I’ve read a lot!). Revolutionary Wealth by Heidi and Alvin Toffler (author of Future Shock) is an excellent look at the way our society is shaping up to morph into during the 21st century. Check Amazon or other online booksellers that contain book reviews by customers for more ideas. The point is, there are more books than anyone could read in an entire lifetime available, and most of them for free for three whole weeks!
Image by: DongWoo Lee
If you don’t like reading, there’s another excellent way to continue learning - podcasts! Podcasts are those radio programs you can download off the Internet, through programs such as iTunes. You then transfer the mp3 files over to your mp3 player of choice, and voila! Radio shows that talk about what you want to hear. One of my favorite podcasts is Bloomberg on the Economy, a top notch discussion regarding a huge range of economic issues. The episodes are short (5-10 minutes), but there are dozens and dozens made per month. You can use a podcast directory such as Podcast.net to locate a podcast about anything your heart desires. But Ryle, I don’t have time to listen to my mp3 player all day, you say. I bet you do - a great many people commute to work everyday, and listen to either the radio or some music while driving. There’s nothing wrong with music, but think about switching to a podcast every once in a while. Again, the different is between a passive medium such as radio (where content is pushed to you), and an active medium such as listening to podcasts (where you choose what to hear) is huge! Another great idea would be to listen to university courses on your mp3 player while driving to work - believe it or not many schools post lectures in podcast form for free. Check out UC Berkeley Webcasts which has course podcasts for the current semester, all downloadable! Classes range from Economics to Biology to Philosophy to Legal Theory.
Things you read or hear can open your mind to new ideas, new ways of doing things, and altogether increase your understanding of the world around you. This is so important, and something so many people I know neglect, that I hope everyone reads this and walks away thinking about what they want to learn and what they can do to better themselves. I only touched on a few ways of continuing education, others include classes at your local community college, online courses, joining a group of people that meet up to discuss everything from politics to photography, or even reading blogs! The point is, keep your eyes and ears open and ready to learn, and you’ll be in a much better off position, both in terms of personal development and career development.
Topics: Business, Education, Life, Psychology |
April 4th, 2007 at 8:12 am
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April 5th, 2007 at 6:36 am
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