By Deborah Chang
As I've entered the working world after graduation, what I find I miss the most is the luxury of spending hours of the day reading and reflecting on the thoughts and work of people from different fields of study. However, as a self-professed lifetime learner, I've found ways to engage in daily learning and reflection and have grown all the more for it.
As I've entered the working world after graduation, what I find I miss the most is the luxury of spending hours of the day reading and reflecting on the thoughts and work of people from different fields of study. However, as a self-professed lifetime learner, I've found ways to engage in daily learning and reflection and have grown all the more for it.
If you are also looking for a way to integrate pockets of learning into your own life, I hope that you find this blog post as a good stepping stone into your own post-graduate journey. If you already have your own way of continually learning, please share them here! We would all benefit from a variety of perspectives and philosophies.
I've found that to be a continuous learner in this busy world you need to:
1. Incorporate into your daily routine, active reading, observing, learning, and participating in discourse. If you feel that you do not read enough or challenge your assumptions, I encourage you to consider how you can change your approach or behaviors. One of the best ways to change your behavior is to build in structures and environmental cues that make it seamless for you to engage in learning. (I will discuss more on this later.)
2. Engage in reflection and get in the practice of writing.
Every person will have different ways of accomplishing the two goals above, but here's a compilation of the different tools you can choose from to build your own learning network!
Google Reader
Ever find an interesting blog that you'd like to keep up with but will not remember to visit every once in a while? Use the Google Reader to get instant updates. You can even subscribe to journals such as the Economist or the New Yorker. Google reader personally offers me the convenience to go to just one place to catch up on current news. The easiest way to add blogs to your Google Reader feed is to drag and drop the Google Reader subscribe button to your browser's menubar.
2. Drag and drop the "Subscribe..." button to your browser's menubar
3. Click on Subscribe anytime you want to subscribe to a blog you're reading!
Advanced users of Google Reader, please read this: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/10-smart-hacks-for-google-reader.html
Amazon Kindle Store
I love reading, but the act of going to a library or a bookstore is no longer easy. Amazon comes to the rescue by providing books that can be downloaded instantly and are oftentimes cheaper than the hard copy version. Best of all, a kindle is not necessary to read Amazon Kindle books. I read mine on my iPod Touch, which is with me all the time, so it's easy to integrate reading into my daily life. I usually set aside twenty minutes in the morning to do some reading and thinking. Please refer to the following sites:
· Get Kindle for your iPhone, Android, Mac, AND Windows PC: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_352814002_3?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-7&pf_rd_r=0H4522CC157XGS7Y874A&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_p=1279039482&pf_rd_i=165849822#
To reflect on my reading, I highlight important passages and make notes as I read through my books. Then, when I'm done with the book, I read through all my highlights, bookmarks, and notes by using the "My Notes and Marks" tab in the Kindle.
Twitter
Twitter is the most efficient way to get news and opinions from a wide variety of sources because people are forced to be very succinct and clear in 140 characters. Additionally, you won't need a lot of time to go through your Twitter feed to choose which Tweets you want to follow up on. For example, as someone who really cares about politics, I follow both the Republican National Committee (@RNC) and the Democrats (@theDemocrats).
To get the most out of Twitter, you can follow lists and categories of people organized by topic. This will allow you to focus on one topic at a time by simply reading all the tweets from one list. To find lists of your own, explore: http://listorious.com/.
And here are some of the most common lists that will fill your own life with much joy and happiness:
1) General News: http://twitter.com/#!/mashable/news
2) Republicans: http://twitter.com/#!/twitsnationPOL/republicans
3) Democrats: http://twitter.com/#!/twitsnationPOL/democrats
4) Science News: http://twitter.com/#!/_mark/science
5) Asian American News: http://twitter.com/#!/AAPInews
Go ahead and sign up for an account now!
Every morning I get in the car, I don’t turn on the music but rather tune into my local National Public Radio station. You can also listen to NPR online, through your iPod (http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php), or through apps on your iPhone, Android phone, or iPad (http://www.npr.org/services/mobile/). The best thing about NPR is that you do not choose your news, but rather you get a wide taste of news from all sectors, science, humanities, tech, politics. To make sure NPR is a daily part of your life, set it as a favorite radio station in your car or always open it and hit play as you're cleaning up your apartment.
Reddit (www.reddit.com)
For the truly news-addicted individuals, please check out reddit, which is a community curated news and commentary site. It’s messy, so venture in it only if you’re ready to sift through a lot of links. Reddit also has very active communities for specific topics, such as science, politics, and even trees. Check out the full list of reddit topics here: http://www.reddit.com/reddits/
Reflection
This is perhaps the hardest thing to build into your daily workflow, because what works is different for every person. For this piece, I can simply share what I do, and if it works for you, great, if it doesn't, just keep experimenting until you find something that works for you.
I often write my reflections for an audience. I post a status update on facebook, for example, or write a note and link it to my blog. I encourage my friends to comment so that we can have online conversations about ideas, and I make sure to spend a little time commenting on their walls as well. The important thing is to add value, to not merely post a news article, but to add your own interpretation, to not only "like" a comment but to say why.
I also micro-journal. This means, I don't spend fifteen minutes each day writing a long reflection (who has time for that?), but I do take 30 seconds when inspiration hits to jot down a short quote, or a quick thought. For example, a week ago I was at a teacher training program and I wrote "As I reflect on what I'd like my deep practice to be, I think a focus on data and technology speaks to my strengths." This thought is now saved in my journaling application (http://www.momentoapp.com) and I can always come back to it later to remember and to build on top of what I've resolved to do. The reasons micro-journaling in Momento works for me are because I do it in the moment, and it takes only 30 seconds of my time. It also connects with my facebook and twitter accounts so that any thoughts I share there are also immediately included in my journal. For those who want to journal, but haven't been able to, micro-journaling might be the way to go. For those who want to micro-journal online, please take a look at Tumblr (www.tumblr.com).
On a final note, it will take time for you to figure out how to integrate learning in your own life. It was certainly some time before I figured out how to make sure I was really making the most out of the limited time I have to read and reflect. However, I hope that this post provided some ideas for you on how to make learning and reflecting a part of your every day routine, and again, I'd love to hear from you!
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