Learning at the Speed of Change, 15 Minutes a Day

I know what goes through your mind when I say you must learn at the speed of change for the rest of your career.

You are thinking: “When am I going to find the time to get all that learning in given my schedule?”

I know the feeling because my schedule is equally full. But I like to practice what I preach, so I have been looking for better ways to learn quickly and on a broad range of subjects.

There are many options available, some of which I share in this post. But, before I get to that, let me talk about a new way of acquiring knowledge.

Probably because of the way we learned in school (in semesters and school years), we tend to think of learning in long, linear terms. That is, a course begins one month and we progress as a group until the course ends at the end of the semester. Then we start all over again and, eventually, we graduate.

That’s not the kind of learning I’m suggesting when I say you need to learn at the speed of change.

In fact, unless you’re truly going for a degree, I don’t think there is a point in thinking in linear terms.

Instead, I think what it takes to stay up to date is a disciplined approach to learning in small bites or even chunks, either to fill specific knowledge gaps or just to please your curiosity for new ideas.

Fortunately, these days the tools are there for you to accomplish that quite easily.

Reading every day

Reading is one of the best ways to learn, but for most people reading is more of a “when I find the time” thing. That may explain why the typical (median) American reads 4 books a year, according to Pew Research.

Not exactly “at the speed of change.”

Erik Rostad, with whom I’ve worked on a number of online projects, has cracked the code. He has made reading his main form of learning. This year he aims to read 52 books in 52 weeks, a book a week, so to speak. And, mind you, there are some heavy tomes in his list. But, analytical as he is, he has figured out that with a disciplined approach of reading 48 pages a day he’s going to meet his goal of 52 books. (Read his post on how to go about it.)

A disciplined approach

Of course, you don’t have to read 52 books in one year in order to stay current. The key takeaway for me from Erik’s method is to set a daily goal to learn. For him it’s reading about 50 pages. For you it could be 15; but there are many other ways for you to learn about a lot of subjects quickly, as long as you are disciplined.

Let me share just my top 5 for you to start with.

5 ways to learn in a little time

1. Blinkist - I would never suggest you forgo reading books in their entirety. But to cover a lot of territory, there are times when you need to accelerate. Blinkist is a new subscription app that lets you read the key lessons from more than 3,000 nonfictionbooks, each in 15 minutes or less.
2. Coursera has 3,100 online courses to choose from on as many subjects as your curiosity can think of. It’s a relatively easy way to catch up on subjects you may have missed. Take Artificial Intelligence (AI), for example. There is a lot of hype about it and, unless you’re in IT, you may not be entirely familiar with it and may even worry about its potential for disruption. Where does one start learning about AI unless you’re already in a related field? Try Coursera’s "AI for Everyone," taught by Andrew Ng, one of the leaders in the field. This free (unless you need a certificate) easy-to-follow online course can help you break through the fear of this most important development as it relates to the future of work. Most of the video segments are fewer than 10 minutes long. You can learn in bites of about 15 minutes, or you can binge and watch all the videos in the course in one afternoon. Either way, you’ll gain enough basic knowledge about AI to be able to understand the many arguments and issues it is beginning to raise.
3. Khan Academy. It’s not just for kids and has a huge selection of courses, all for free.
4. Kindle. One of Erik Rostad’s tips is to never leave home without a book (I never do). Amazon’s Kindle and the Kindle app make that extremely easy. You can easily squeeze in several pages just while you wait for your cappuccino. But, even more amazing to me, is the immediacy with which you can download a book, no matter where you are. You’re at the airport and hear people talking about a topic or a book. A few keystrokes on your smartphone and the book is in your device, ready for you to read.
5. Audible and other sources of audiobooks. In this age of long commutes, they make it easy to learn while making the time in transit a lot more enjoyable and productive.

This list is by no means all-inclusive. You can add Ted Talks, YouTube videos, podcasts, trade shows, and conferences. I’d love to get your recommendations in the comments section.

The discipline to learn

The key, to me, is having the discipline to learn consistently, the curiosity to want to know new things, and the humility to know you’ll never know enough.

My suggestion is that you make this type of learning part your weekly plan until it becomes an engrained habit (and even then you may want to continue the reminder).

If you devote a bit of time each day to make progress, whether it’s reading a book or reading a synopsis of a book, or check on Khan Academy on something you want to know more about, you’ll further ahead than you were 15 minutes before.

We are living in an amazing world where we can have almost any information we want at our fingertips. The key to learning at the speed of change is to have the discipline to learn a little bit each day, and to never let a day go by without learning, even if it’s just for 15 minutes.

Enjoy the journey!