How would you deal with continuous professional development?

chrisstribbs

chrisstribbs

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Hi everyone,
Hope this finds you well.
I work from home and rarely do any travel. I often used journey times for some of these things.
How would you deal with non-date-specific CPD? As well as date-specific things, such as the session at midday today, I also develop my various practices by reading and listening to podcasts.

What I am reflecting right now is that the day job becomes the priority and therefore I don't have much left for CPD . To do some, I tend to do this in my own time off I've rested et cetera.

I currently have a list of CPD that I want to do, most books are on my Kindle app for flexibility and a look at the list regularly in my weekly review.

For example, had a short-notice cancellation from a client and I am current with all my other commitments. I've then been able to focus on a 50-minute broadcast.

If familiar with the subject material, then I could listen to a recording in the background as I work, although that's not really putting attention on engaging with that learning…
 
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If you are using the criteria of contexts, time, and energy to me it simply will appear on those lists and I can make that choice. If lets see it is a podcast I can access them via my phone or computer but I only use phone for podcasts as a context as when I am at my computer I want to be more productive. If it is 50 minutes and you have 30 it should filter out, if you have 60 it should be visible. And energy to me that is a low energy activity.

So when I use those criteria it might surface. And I can evaluate against all of the other next actions and be mindful of where it is priority wise at the moment given the opportunity to do things and choose to get it done.

Personally, I have set my shortcuts on my iphone to automatically open omnifocus in my phone context when my car connects to carplay. So I get into my car, turn it on, my phone shows me a list of things I can do. Before I start driving I go through them and make a decision if it is phone call time while driving, listening to a podcast, or doing neither and just listening to music.

It is all about using those lists and making the educated decision!
 
If I were more into CPD, i'd establish a cadence, where "continuous" just becomes a series of steps at a right-sized time intervals. Set goals and weak timeframe targets, and work backwards. If you're too aggressive, stuff slides, like any other situation where things are "overtaken by events".

Just create a queue of stuff to watch or do, with perhaps some notion of time and energy requirements. Find yourself with an hour to spare, goto the buffet that you've created.

Every year I watch the Humans 2 Mars conference, which is 3 days long. I don't have like 24 hours worth of time to sit down and whack through it. Instead, I get the agenda and select which of the sessions I want to see, and a list that I might want to see. Probably 50% are high priority, and another 30% are lower, depending on subject matter and session presenters. I create a youtube playlist and then start working through them, based on time available. 15 mins here, and hour there. I try and prioritize them, and use a best fit algorithm. Sometimes i'll take a bigger chunk of time to knock out a bunch of small ones, just to satisify my bloodlust for reducing the number left. :-)
 
chrisstribbs said:
Hi everyone,
Hope this finds you well.
How would you deal with non-date-specific CPD? As well as date-specific things, such as the session at midday today, I also develop my various practices by reading and listening to podcasts.
What I am reflecting right now is that the day job becomes the priority and therefore I don't have much left for CPD are tend to do this in my own time off I've rested et cetera.
I currently have a list of CPD that I want to do, most books are on my Kindle app for flexibility and a look at the list regularly in my weekly review.

For example, had a short-notice cancellation from a client and I am current with all my other commitments. I've then been able to focus on a 50-minute broadcast. If unfamiliar with the subject material, then I could listen to a video Tory broadcast in the background as work, although that's not really putting attention on engaging with that learning…
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In this end, with "a [Projects] list of CPD" it would be assigned to an Area-of-Focus and for herein would be as follows: PERSONS [First Person in this case] . . . HEALTHY [very important non-assuming criteria] . . . CPD . . . which would have a rigorously thought out written ultimate Purpose for a relatively non-changing 'North Star' to more easily manifest/maintain Goal Focus awareness and just as as importantly Avoidance/Self-Sabotaging awareness for anything that could/is undermining PERSONS . . . HEALTHY . . . CPD's ultimate Purpose
 
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For me personally, I consider the general reading/listening/consumption of stuff related to personal development as a hobby, and I don't put it into my GTD system, same reason I don't put any of my hobbies into my system. I just do them in my free when the mood takes me. I have a structured journal that I keep up weekly-ish, and that acts as a general reminder to keep on track with things like personal development. But that's all I seem to need to stay aware. As long a I have a steady stream of interesting books and stuff to consume, I get through them.

If I have something specific in mind, like I quickly need to brush up on something related to a project that I have, then I would put that in my system. That's relatively rare though.
 
bishblaize said:
For me personally, I consider the general reading/listening/consumption of stuff related to personal development as a hobby, and I don't put it into my GTD system, same reason I don't put any of my hobbies into my system. I just do them in my free when the mood takes me. I have a structured journal that I keep up weekly-ish, and that acts as a general reminder to keep on track with things like personal development. But that's all I seem to need to stay aware. As long a I have a steady stream of interesting books and stuff to consume, I get through them.

If I have something specific in mind, like I quickly need to brush up on something related to a project that I have, then I would put that in my system. That's relatively rare though.
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Good point, specific recaps ahead of an event e.g. a software feature before a client session gets time blocked. Judging by the amount of CPD I do each month and put of hours, it must be a hobby
 
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Continuous Professional Development is an Area of Focus / Responsibility. I regularly review those (and my other higher horizons). I have certain goals in my higher horizons for that. Both those goals as well as the general category of CPD in ma AoF will, from time to time, spawn projects that land on my project list. I work towards the project goals one next action after the other. When I do the next action, I concentrate on it, like any other next action. That doesn't mean that I may not water the plants while listening to a podcast, though...
 
CPD always seemed like a sad substitute for the absolute joy of playing and learning. To me, it conjures images of employers forcing their staff to study as a box-ticking exercise. I absolutely love learning and take inspiration from an article written by Kent Beck about paint drip people.

In my own system, I have learning at each horizon. It is rarely called out but is threaded through almost everything I do.

On horizon 5 (purpose & principles), I have "Bettering myself", which I intend to be holistic. It includes learning, fitness, health and relationships with others.

On horizon 4 (vision), I have something about teaching and learning as a combined effort, as the two are synergistic amplifiers of each other.

On horizon 3 (goals), I have more concrete things like a repertoire of guitar and piano pieces, a foreign language, a portfolio of nicely painted things and my next martial arts grade. All are to do with learning but have some exciting goals at the end of the tunnel.

On horizon 2 (AOF), I list some of the areas that I am interested in but that may not have active projects.

On horizon 1 (projects), I have lots of projects that will require some learning in order to achieve the desired outcome.

When choosing actions in the moment, it's really easy to choose a learning action if it moves me closer to a desired outcome.
 
You may be asking "how do I objectively prioritize CPD"? Perhaps commitment to spend at least an hour a week on CPD, where meeting that minimum commitment is as valuable to you as any single one of your day job projects. Also maybe order your list of CPD projects so you're working one at a time. Finally, if you can find a CPD mentor outside of your supervisory chain to meet with regularly, keeping the commitments you make with your mentor could help you stay objective.
 
Interesting question. I think there is no great way yet.

Recently, I started exploring this exact topics and am in the middle of exploring a good approach. This is my current attempt. See the screenshot of how I organise all this below. On the left are all knowledge and skill items (I differentiate these two.)

I did it like this:
  1. Identify areas where I need/want to improve (one column each)
  2. Brainstorm what is relevant in each section (one sticky per item, not detailed)
  3. Assess depth of knowledge for each item (move it down the table rows the more knowledgable)
  4. Highlight items that are important/relevant right now.
From there, I pick the most relevant items and put them on the Kanban board (right in the picture.) That is what I focus on at the moment. I create a project and tasks for it in OmniFocus (e.g. read articles, do tutorials or trainings on it.)

Hope this helps. I ended up with managing it in miro (a collaborative whiteboard) because having everything in lists in OF did not help me manage it very well. One day, when Obsidian has good support for whiteboards, I might integrate it into my reference system. (They have a basic version which I have not tried yet.)

Best,
Benedikt

P.S.: The radar is my version of the Technology Radar which I really like.

Screenshot 2023-06-18 at 22.33.40.png
 
Like @Longstreet, I am a university professor, so my main jobs are to preserve, extend and transmit knowledge. So it’s interesting to me to hear how other people have to make room in their lives for professional development. My problem is drinking from a firehose: lots of new, technical input every week and lots of pulls on my time. Longstreet is a strong advocate for time blocking because of the need for both focus and vision in his work.
 
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mcogilvie said:
Like @Longstreet, I am a university professor, so my main jobs is to preserve, extend and transmit knowledge. So it’s interesting to me to hear how other people have to make room in their lives for professional development. My problem is drinking from a firehouse: lots of new, technical input every week and lots of pulls on my time. Longstreet is a strong advocate for time blocking because of the need for both focus and vision in his work.
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I hear that
 
mcogilvie said:
Like @Longstreet, I am a university professor, so my main jobs is to preserve, extend and transmit knowledge. So it’s interesting to me to hear how other people have to make room in their lives for professional development. My problem is drinking from a firehouse: lots of new, technical input every week and lots of pulls on my time. Longstreet is a strong advocate for time blocking because of the need for both focus and vision in his work.
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Agree, life can be like drinking from a firehose which is why as many GTD General Areas-of-Focus as necessary (5) and as many Particular Areas-of-Focus as necessary (5) in order to corral any of life's seemingly infinite possibilities was the GTD Organize response on this end without needing looking back . . . so far!

Ps. On this end, by far the most important GTD Areas-of-Focus Utility objectively organized for subjective healthy/professional development to date for a coherently reliable implemented GTD system

Pps. In all humility and with all due respect, any fellow GTDer who has developed an otherwise better coherently reliable implemented GTD system for corralling infinite variables of business/life/professional, etc. as a single functioning living-life instrument/system, GTD or otherwise, are respectfully encouraged to please present/share so the above can be readily chucked for anything/something better . . . thank you very much
 
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This seems to have layers. I’ll share some of my own experience and see if that helps. it sounds to me like some of your challenge here might come down to the clarifying phase.

Professional development as a category probably “lives” on the area of focus horizon, as others have pointed out. Projects will often seed and grow from the area of professional development, but you are never exactly “done” with it. For me, I list this as an accountability under my “career” area of focus.

One of the challenges with an area like professional development is that there are a million possibilities and available options, but only so much time and energy. So it often comes down to truly clarifying your commitments.

In my profession, as in many, there are both required/mandated cpd and elective, self directed pursuits. When I look at courses, journal articles, podcasts, conferences, and other opportunities, I put them through the clarifying process. Is the option I’m considering a must do, want to do, would be nice to do, or just sound interesting? How closely connected to my performance in my current areas of focus is this item? Do I have the time, bandwidth, and resources to commit to it?

These are, of course, the same types of questions you would ask about any item in your inbox. So if the item is a must to do, or I am definitely committed to do it, I will make it a next action or project, depending on the size of it. If it is a nice to do or simply sounds interesting, it will generally end up on a someday/maybe list. I keep my someday maybe lists organized by my areas of focus, so naturally, there is a list for professional development opportunities. This is where all the crazy stuff I “might do” goes, but also the not so crazy things that I simply didn’t have the bandwidth for and might consider at a later date.

If maintaining regularity in your attention on professional development is of interest to you, you could employ a checklist. For me, professional development presents itself so often, I do not need a reminder but rather a filter to deal with the fire hose problem that others have described. One option in the proximity of a checklist would be to add a step to your weekly review to select a professional development item and put it on your calendar to protect the time. Or simply to block time for professional development each week, in which you could work off of a list designed for that purpose. I say each week but It could really be any frequency. Since you can go out several weeks in the calendar review step, I have items like this in my weekly review (e.g “make sure x is scheduled once a month,” etc)

Experiment with different approaches until you can reliably get professional development off your mind and on cruise control.
 
bishblaize said:
For me personally, I consider the general reading/listening/consumption of stuff related to personal development as a hobby, and I don't put it into my GTD system, same reason I don't put any of my hobbies into my system. I just do them in my free when the mood takes me. I have a structured journal that I keep up weekly-ish, and that acts as a general reminder to keep on track with things like personal development. But that's all I seem to need to stay aware. As long a I have a steady stream of interesting books and stuff to consume, I get through them.

If I have something specific in mind, like I quickly need to brush up on something related to a project that I have, then I would put that in my system. That's relatively rare though.
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That's kind of where I have ended up with myself. I think I'm weird though, as all the development stuff links to my freelance work.
 
chrisstribbs said:
That's kind of where I have ended up with myself. I think I'm weird though, as all the development stuff links to my freelance work.
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I have evolved this on my end.... I have a "recharge" context and these types of items sit there such as Play Piano, Guitar, etc. That came from a coaching recommendation. They never get completed or checked off, just a list of options. And while you could say they should be areas of responsibility this gets them more in my face at ready times (weekly review) on top of the piano just sitting in my living room looking at me :)

But I also have a personal development skill development context and I am starting to think about allocating time to each context to plan out my week a bit more
 
ivanjay205 said:
I have evolved this on my end.... I have a "recharge" context and these types of items sit there such as Play Piano, Guitar, etc. That came from a coaching recommendation. They never get completed or checked off, just a list of options. And while you could say they should be areas of responsibility this gets them more in my face at ready times (weekly review) on top of the piano just sitting in my living room looking at me :)

But I also have a personal development skill development context and I am starting to think about allocating time to each context to plan out my week a bit more
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@ivanjay205

Thank you very much for you GTD post

Each of the Five Stages of GTD Work Flow as methodologies practiced through tools might be deemed as a skill development to serve all one's other skills development(s) including personal development ?

Meanwhile, perhaps naïvely, also suggesting intrinsic and extrinsic "skill development(s)" and "personal development(s)" are two-sides of the same coin ?

Thank you very much

As you see GTD fit. . . .
 
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As I understand GTD, the system only records stuff that I feel a commitment to. No habits etc. So if personal development is perceived as a commitment (open-ended), it represents an AOF that results in projects and next actions (otherwise not). You also don't have to include things in the system that are already a natural reminder, for example the "GTD" book on the table that I want to use to develop my personality: If I am in the right context (@home), it reminds me just as well as a list entry that there is a next step ("reading") open.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
 
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