I am a tools and toolkit person. I heavily rely on all sorts of tools and techniques and methods and tricks to fire up my process as a learning experience designer AND a learner.
What does this even mean?
Just that (as I have repeatedly established in my previous posts like a broken recorder) learning and designing meaningful learning is HARD. There are a zillion reasons why we fall off the learning bandwagon, and sometimes it is as inexplicable as “not being inspired”. Which is fair enough.
But we don’t need to always resign ourselves to the fate of “inspiration depletion” (I just came up with that, how does it sound?) We don’t even need to resign ourselves to feeling “stuck” while learning something new or unlearning.
There are a zillion ways to make learning feel ‘unstuck’ and feel more inspired. The beauty of this is that we can pick and choose from a buffet of tools and use whatever works. There is no set rule. And the best part is that anything can be a tool. Maybe a midnight walk around your block helps you get unstuck. That is your tool. Maybe reading the news about the topic you are trying to learn is what helps you. Great - that is your tool. Maybe taking a nap helps you. All these 3 are powerful tools that can help you feel inspired and feel unstuck.
The thing about tools is that they don’t need to be objects or apps or some sophisticated device that predicts how you feel. No. A tool is literally anything that can help you through your learning block.
So here are my 3 TOP favourite learning tools that have rarely (read never) failed. Feel free to try them out if you haven’t already.
1 - Dialogue 💬
When I am not making progress in my learning, or deep work activity, I just phone a friend. I have done this so often that I have designed my dialogue tool as well. I have a set of 3-4 friends who I rely on for my dialogue tool. I pick a friend based on their interest in my topic, and their degree of personal opinion as well. I call them, inform them of my intention for the call, and we simply plunge into chatter. Here I am looking for support to specifically help me feel inspired.
Another approach is having casual conversations with different people I interact with in general. This is designed for free flow and meandering conversations. Here I am looking for insight and a new perspective. It is possible that some of these conversations take the form of devil’s advocate, which I am perfectly fine with as the intention is to receive new ideas.
How does this work? Firstly, talking about your thoughts helps you get out of your own head. While you frame sentences and speak you are also restructuring your understanding of the concept. Often your thoughts evolve as you speak them out.
Secondly, another person’s perspective is like the missing jigsaw puzzle piece in your understanding. And just by talking, your thoughts unlock!
2 - Doodling or Sketching 🖌
Don’t brush this off. Don’t you dare brush this one off as a fancy designer skill. Hear me out first.
Writing and making notes is a great tool to make sense of things. But writing has its limitations. When you are constantly forcing your thoughts to take the form of words, you are limiting new thoughts that you don’t have words to. But we think more in pictures, and less in words. How do we capture those?
Doodling, captures this. Whether it is free form meandering doodles, or doodles with specific outcomes, does not matter. Breaking away from a linear hand movement to a free flow one, helps you unstuck, because you are not adhering to rules. And sometimes that’s all we need.
Another important benefit of doodling is that is slows you down, allowing you to observe things more closely, giving you new insights.
Unfortunately doodling and sketching has been associated with specific professions, but it is a powerful tool that anyone will benefit from.
3 - Unrelated Activities ⛷
Contrasting activities work like a charm when we are feeling stuck. For example, if I need to write a paper that requires hours of screen time, reading research, writing paragraphs - I would like to contrast this with an activity like hitting the gym or going to watch a stand up comedy.
How does this work? When you are intensely involved in a learning activity, even after you step away from it, it is still subconsciously playing on your mind. So engaging in an unrelated activity opens up your mind to new perspectives and connections. There is subconscious sense-making that happens which is only possible when you are using completely different parts of your brain.
What are some things you do to fire up your learning? Something different? Anything weird?
Here are my top 3 learning tools. As I mentioned above, learning tools are not set in stone, it’s important for everyone to become aware of their learning process, and challenges and consciously experiment with different activities that could potentially help get unstuck.