How often do you sharpen your saw?

Posted by Margaret Bolding

Continuing Education is defined as a program of non-credit courses for adults regardless of previous education. I believe we would all agree that furthering our knowledge is an excellent idea that benefits not only ourselves but our colleagues and organizations.   So why don’t we make deliberate, structured learning more of a priority with our time?

What qualifies as structured learning?

...and why does it need to be structured anyway? I am of the opinion that you should take the time for structured learning every day, week or month to hone your skills in a deliberate manner. Make learning important. How this applies to each of us is as individual as we are. For example, I often eat lunch at my desk and put a placeholder on my calendar during lunch for ‘professional development’. During this time I watch webinars, read relevant news articles, participate in an e-learning course, research information for a special project or review products that complement our product offering. I also research our competition.

A few thoughts toward deliberate learning:

• Make an appointment for yourself to create an initial strategy. These are your skills so take the time to create a plan.
• Schedule recurring time on your calendar for learning, then protect that time.

Brainstorm, in advance, about topics you want to learn more about. This will give you somewhere to start when the calendar appointment rolls around. Here are a few starters, but each will need details only you can answer.​

•  What do you need to learn more about?
• What are your competitor’s greatest threats to you?
• What have you been asked about in the last 3-6 months for which you did not have an answer?
• What’s important to your profession?
• Are there certifications relevant to your field to aid in your professional advancement?

Events, conferences and seminars are also great ways to sharpen your saw. Getting out of your everyday routine and environment allows the opportunity to think about one topic and focus all attention toward how it can be used for positive change.

None of this is rocket science. Much of it isn’t even hard or expensive – we just need to make continual learning important.

InterDyn Artis as well as other service organizations offer conferences and events in order to help clients with ongoing education. We recently hosted a day of continued learning about Microsoft Dynamics GP on May 15, 2014. We encourage anyone using Dynamics GP to take a look at our event page for Vision 2014 and attend an event!

Sharpen the saw now and keep learning as a deliberate action for life.