Planning & Taking Actions in the Learning Process

On one beautiful morning, you wake up deciding that this is the day you will learn something new or pick up a new skill to add values to your life. The feeling is electrifying. You start to imagine the various praises, accolades and the number of “Likes” or Followers you will garner on your social media. This will be the day you will create a once a lifetime story to be told generations later. Exciting!!

As you venture out for the day in your learning process, a saying keep ringing in your mind. “Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail” Probably you have heard this statement for the 108th time since your childhood till your working life now. Probably your parents had been inculcating this idea to you. Probably your teachers had mentioned this idea to you as you managed your classroom expectations, projects and examinations. Probably in your workplace, your boss had been hammering this to you every quarter as he trying to motivate your team to perform better in the job. Well, we do not deny the wisdom in this saying. However, don’t you agree that there are times when we are too limited by this very saying in our learning process? Yes, we want to keep learning, but we feel we need to do some more planning first before we proceed to taking actions in the learning process. Planning mode When you are in the planning mode, probably you are thinking and considering whether you should invest your time and efforts in learning a subject or picking up a skill. You ask around or scour the Internet for the benefits of learning the subject and the skills. Then you start searching for the best academy, best school or the best learning institutions to learn the subject. Not to mentioned the deep research you conduct about the experts you should your read about the subject matter. You remember that “Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail”. You know you cannot waste your money, time and efforts. You need to gather as much information about the subject matters before proceeding. If you are planning to pick up a skill that involves some equipment or instruments, the research and planning to acquire the equipment or instruments may consume another 50 hours of your life. After 2 months of planning, you realized that you actually haven’t started learning about the subject matter or actually practicing the skill you desire. It’s a lousy feeling to come to this realization. But you give yourself a pat on the back for doing sufficient research and planning. But the question remain: When are you going to start learning the subject matters or practicing the skill? Taking Action Mode

There is another mode in learning. That is the Taking Action mode. Without much planning, you dive straight into the deep end of learning the subject matter or the skill. You tell yourself that you must go all out in doing something. You enthusiastically exclaim that “either you do something or your don’t do something”. You rush out to buy the top 10 books (both physical copies and electronic version) of the subject matter. As a person of taking actions, you rush out to buy whatever equipment or instruments you can afford to start off your learning. Then you learning the subject matter by actually learning the subject matter and practicing the skill you desire. After 2 months of taking actions, you realized that have learn a great deal on the subject matter or skill. However, you also come to realize that if you have just invested a little bit more time on planning and research, probably you don’t need to waste so much unnecessary time and resources on mistakes that can be avoided. Mistakes are the source of learning, yet some of the mistakes are unnecessary mistakes. Then, in order to feel a little better, you try to encourage yourself by saying that no mistakes is gone to waste. True… but are those mistakes necessary? Now the question is this: How do you then balance planning and taking actions in your learning process? Balancing between Planning & Taking Actions In my own learning journey, I also have bounced back and forth between planning mode and taking actions mode. Both modes have their pros and cons. Here I would like to share some suggestions in balancing between planning mode and taking actions mode (it might work for you, or it might not work for you):

• Set tentative target or constraint in your research and planning mode. For example: “I will read up 3 articles and 1 book on this subject matter, then I will start taking actions in learning and review again later from there”.

• Evaluate the risks involved. If the learning process won’t harm you, your loved one or your community, there should not be any reasons why you should not start taking actions to learn about the subject matter or skills.
  

• Remember that you learn by doing. You learn drawing by drawing. You learn to play the piano by playing the piano. You learn to write by writing. You learn to bake by baking. If you are learning some abstract knowledge, you can learn by process of recalling the knowledge, teaching the knowledge to others or writing about the knowledge in your own words.

• Break down a subject matter and learn in targeted manner (especially in the learning of new skills). For example, if you want to learn about video editing, you can break down the subject matter and learn in a targeted manners the skills involved like getting the video editing software, installing the video editing software, doing basic editing, adding transitions, adding text captions and exporting the video cut. As you progress in your learning process, you will pick up when to do planning&research and when to take actions.

• Employ the idea of micro-habits in your learning process. Try to incorporate tiny learning habits into your daily life. For instance, you can squeeze in 5 minutes of time to review vocabularies of the foreign language you are learning while waiting for the LRT. You can squeeze in 5 minutes to review the 9th or 11th guitar chord patterns while lining up for your take-away lunch. You can spend 10 minutes reading a book before you go to bed.

• Take time to review your learning process. There are merits in taking actions in the learning process. But at appropriate timing, it is good to pause and take a step back to review the whole learning process, to identify the “gaps” in learning and to plan upcoming actions.

• Celebrate your small win. For example, if you are sharpening your writing skills, probably you can set a target to buy yourself a nice fountain pen that you desire if you have written 10 essays.
  

Friends, may you find these sharing beneficial for your own personal learning journey. Do drop us a line sharing your personal learning journey.