How can you balance self-directed learning with your busy schedule?

Uno de los retos del aprendizaje autodirigdo es que se nos olvida el propósito. Cuando aprendemos en función deuna credencial es poco probable que tengamos la constancia paraterminar o que, en efecto, aprendamos. Un ejercicio que me sirve mucho a mí (además de los SMART) es preguntarme 5 veces por qué. Por lo general al tercer o cuarto por qué logro llegar a un valor fundamental mío y de ahí no hay quien me mueva. Por ejemplo, estoy tomando un curso para ser programadora educativa PORQUE (1) quiero ser buena lider educativa PORQUE (2) creo en la educación para contribuir a un mundo mejor PORQUE (3) quiero aportar a los demás PORQUE (4) creo que el mundo puede ser mejor y PORQUE (5) quiero dar a mi vida un propósito superior. Ven?

One thing that is crucial is to frequently revise your goals. As you continue learning, you evolve and refine what you aim to achieve. Reflecting on your goals every three months is an excellent way to ensure you're on track to reach your desired destination. It's beneficial to schedule a goal review in your calendar when you first create them, to guarantee consistent progress.

In these 10 years, I have kept 1 hour regularly for my learnings. So for me SMART approach really helps but be regular and consistent with that in order to achieve long term impact.

Goals must be relevant to your professional development and aligned with the needs of the corporate educational environment. Make sure each objective directly contributes to your professional growth. Set realistic deadlines for your goals, creating a sense of urgency and commitment. Adapt timelines as needed.

Balancing self-directed learning with a busy schedule can be challenging, but it's certainly possible with effective time management and commitment. Prioritizing tasks is the key. With my experience it is important to identify the most important task and prioritize them. At the same time, can utilize spare moments. Taking advantage of short breaks or idle moments during the day, we can listen to podcasts, watch short educational videos, or read articles. Eliminating time wasting activities is another important point. Identifying and minimizing activities that consume your time without adding value such as reducing time spent on social media, TV, or other non-essential activities will save time.

We all desire to be life long learners. Part of this is learning how to balance your priorities. Balancing work and family is hard enough, add for study on top of that and you have to be careful. Determining what is possible from formal part-time study is crucial before committing to it. Once committed to, you need to ensure that you have cleared space in other areas for it to fit it. Stay ahead of deadlines as far as possible so that you maintain a proactive approach to scheduling, as opposed to reacting to time pressure which will eat up into other priorities at the time.

Time is a limited resource, but so is your energy. Schedule your learning at times in the day or week when you feel more energised and focused. This will increase the efficiency of your study sessions and overall attachment to your goal. Above all, be honest with yourself. You know better than anybody else which personal interaction drains you the most, which core leaves you exhausted and what time of the week is sacred Netflix time. Validate and respect your mental and physical needs while designing your learning schedule.

Scheduling is very important cause it helps in managing time effectively, promotes consistency and discipline, reduces stress, and aids in identifying and addressing knowledge gaps. Ultimately, it leads to increased productivity and improved academic performance.

I found two strategies particularly effective in my pursuit of SDL. First, enlisting a study partner or transforming the learning into a team challenge helped build collective motivation. Numerous apps can track progress, display leaderboards, award leadership badges, and provide gentle prompts to keep you on track. Secondly, it's crucial to establish an understanding with oneself that you'll likely need to let go of another activity to make room for learning. Ideally, this would be something you’ve considered eliminating for some time. For me, the trade-offs were clear - less time spent on news consumption and scrolling through social media. What are yours:-)?

Tracking progress is crucial because it's the ultimate check on how good your planning was. This data can then be used to make informed decisions about whether the goal is achievable or whether adjustments need to be made.

With any professional learning, ensure you can apply it to your role. Sometimes it is too easy to embark on (any online) courses and obtain a certificate of completion/participation. By having relevance and applicability to your role, it is easier to seek support, or have an action-research approach to your SDL. Using the wider network such as LinkedIn, you can also easily extend the SDL into a sharing or seeking or good practice too. The more you network, the more you can find your understanding on a particular topic is enhanced which in turn should lead to a better completion of any SDL tasks/units of study.

Emphasize the importance of personal discipline when balancing self-directed learning with a busy schedule. It´s very important.