Sometimes I wish I just knew how to do everything. Ok, not everything. I don’t really care to know how to program code for the systems we support in IS (shhh…don’t tell anyone), but so many things related to my job and my life would be so much easier if I were a pro at them. For example, I really wish I could throw together fantastic movies with my countless pictures and videos, with the perfectly selected song of course. It’d be really helpful if I knew how to sew. Think of the great gifts I could make! And one of these days I’ll sit down and read the manual for our very sophisticated camera or maybe I’ll take a class so I can use more than a fraction of what it’s capable of. I’m just getting started. That’s just some of the stuff I want to learn at home!
I wish I knew even more for work. I’d love to be a better artist and have the skill to create videos/tutorials with this trendy whiteboard technique I’m seeing everywhere these days. I could make even snazzier eLearning courses if only I knew Flash. And how cool would I be if I could incorporate Twitter into my classes and adjust the content of what I’m teaching real-time as they’re planning to do at a conference I’m attending in a couple weeks? And my goodness, my life would be so much easier if I were a Photoshop whiz. I use it to create some images for the eLearning courses I create and I use it for our PMO PROJECTor newsletter, but I know that what takes me an hour could be done in mere minutes if I were savvier. How do I know this? Because my husband uses it almost daily and when I cry to him in frustration about spending the last two hours on something, he usually says, “Oh it’s easy, just do this…”. If only I could keep him by my side when I’m working on stuff!
In my last post I asked if training is the answer? In this post, I think the answer is yes. If I just had more training and practice on these skills, I have no doubt I could do them well. So what’s the problem? For me, and probably most people, it feels like time is the issue. Where will I find the time to learn all these things? And should I? Is it better to be really skilled at one thing than have a little knowledge about everything? Maybe it varies by individual. For me, I need a balance. I’ve been doing this training stuff for over 10 years now; if I’m going to stay interested, I need to evolve and stay on top of new trends. However, there’s only so much time in a day and I’m only one person. It’s a lot of pressure on myself to expect to be able to do everything and be great at it!
How do you do it? How do you carve out time to learn the new things you’re interested in? What do you want to learn more about? How do you reconcile that maybe you can’t be great at everything? Or can you? If so, please tell me your secret?
Amy — great post and I’m totally with you. Focus and scheduling may be the answer yet there is still not enough time to accomplish all one wants to achieve. The whiteboard video is fantastic! Thanks for sharing.
Amy – nice article and oh, so true! So many things to learn and do! How do we decide which to invest time into and which to let get away (for now anyway)? I also would like to learn how to create tutorials, for example. There is one item I have been going over in my mind for a long time now, though it will never materialize because I simply lack the technical know-how to put it into practice. And I have even less time to acquire this knowledge. So, this will remain wishful thinking.
Thanks for this great write-up, Amy!
Amy – great article! I have these same thoughts as well sometimes. Luckily we have such talented staff here at DFCI so there are people that I can turn to for questions. Aside from that I need to prioritize my learning needs and focus on those areas. Right now I’m on a break from a health care data warehousing conference and it’s sooo helpful, but I did have to carve the time out to be here, and it was something I prioritized this year. The other side of the coin is that we will probably never know everything about everything…. or maybe we could, but we probably wouldn’t have a life 😉
Amy, Great article and very thought provoking. Your article reminds me of quote from Socrates “The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing”
Thanks for the post Amy. I am about to finish my MBA at Boston University and feel a bit disappointed that I didn’t learn more applied skills there. Too much theory, too much time spent in lectures. Applied and experiential learning is the solution for me. If I have a problem to solve and I apply my efforts to solving that problem. That approach leaves out the big picture stuff though. No easy solution here. Good luck with your learning.
You’re all making me feel much better, especially with the wise words of Socrates! As I suspected it is something many of us struggle with. You may be right Joan that it takes focus, scheduling (and probably prioritizing). As much as I’d like to learn these things, I would prefer to have a life as you suggest Rob and enjoy the people in it and do the things I love to do. So, sounds like it’s important to find a good balance, not be too hard on ourselves for things we don’t know, and continue to apply what we learn so we don’t lose that knowledge!
PS…Congrats on your impending MBA Robson! Sounds like you were able to focus and find time, even with a full time job and a family!