Are you like me—soaking up book recommendations, podcasts, classes—always hungry for a a gripping concept, the latest study, or an updated twist on an old theme? Always harboring an appetite to learn new things?
It’s all good … until it’s overwhelming.
A friend in the Finish It community recently told me she was feeling this information overload. She was plowing through a stack of books, attending workshops, jotting notes—taking it all in.
But now what? She felt stalled in how to act on it. The more ideas coming in, the less she felt like she knew how to use them.
It’s a good question—what can transform too much novel information into action?
Because I’ve worked in the field for ten years, I thought: we could tackle this as a learning design challenge.
The answer lies in how to introduce some element of “learning by doing” to my friend’s routine. Learning by doing as an education theory can trace its American roots to John Dewey, but the principle has been around as long as people. Hayne W. Reese lists a pantheon of historical figures, from Plato to Marx to Mao to Maria Montessori, among its proponents.
The phrase is self-explanatory, and the gist is that we learn most effectively in our actual environments when we attempt to apply what we’ve learned by practicing it ourselves in our own real-world situations, rather than watching others do it or just reading about it.
|
|
|
how to move from steeping to doing ...
|
|
|
So, imagine I was designing my friend’s coming week for her like I’d design an online learning experience. My first thought would be: how can her routine more quickly nudge her to move from steeping to doing?
A simple way to begin counteracting feelings of information inundation would be to time-box the inputs (reading/watching/listening) for a while and restore some balance by scheduling an equal amount of “practice” time.
Perhaps for a month she could do this by booking two “development” dates with herself each week—one “incoming,” the other “outgoing” (aka doing).
For example, each week she could block out 4 hours for reading/watching/listening and match that with a 4-hour block for putting into practice one or more of the ideas from those inputs.
It’s a basic solution, one that could be refined over time—or abandoned once balance is restored.
But when you’re feeling overwhelmed, sometimes it’s just a relief to have a place to start.
|
|
|
|
