Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Explore- a simple and effective way to continue learning while working

From the days of my training in NAL after my last AMAeSI and to this
day I am doing this ritual.

Everyday in office I set 30 mins in which I just explore. That is my
exploration time. In my exploration time I just take up any software,
topic or something of interest related to office work and just tinker
with it.

Sometimes the tinkering is based on the previous thing I saw someone
do in the software or it might be a general excel dummy plots or just
eyeing the online helps of different softwares. But everyday, without
fail, I do my exploration.

What has it done for me?

It has taught me catia, ansys, solidworks, unigraphics, excel, vba,
macros, sco3, javascript, vbscript and many more software and languages.

This exploration has polished my excel, powerpoint and word skills.

While in NAL, this exploration was deliberate and consumed more time
but the habit formed in that phase stuck and I am still reaping
rewards of it.

So if you are doing training, or just joined work. Set up a daily
ritual for your workdesk and devote 15 to 20 minutes to explore
whatever fancies you on that day.

Here are some basic tips that you need to keep in mind.

1. Setup a time that is it can be first thing in the morning or just
before lunch or just before tea but set a time.

2. Now since this will not be an urgent thing, and office environment
throws so many unexpecterd tasks, you will forget it easily so set up
some reminders. Have your desktop wallpaper remind you. Or configure
your outlook to remind you to explore. Post a note underneath your
lunch box to remind yourself. Whatever you do the main idea is to
remember to do your exploration.

3. Thirly do something that is relevent to your work now or in future.
Don't just get on net and surf. Try a new excel trick you learnt
recently or try a new command in catia or simply browse through the
ansys manual. If you do it with a learning attitude you will always
take something valuable out of this experience.

Well that's it from my side and if you impliment it in your work life,
do share your experience here. I would love to hear from you.

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