Learning | Words For Hire

Getting the Most Out of Learning Opportunities with #Workhacks

February 28, 2013 by Karen Swim

Raise your hand if you have ever had conference brain? After a conference you are brimming with ideas and have a long list of things that you want to try, implement or learn more about. I don’t know about you but I often come down from the conference high, and land back in the real world with deadlines to manage, campaigns to organize and clients to please. I may get to one or two things on the list but far too often that list become one more of my kids with no shoes.

Overwhelmed (Photo credit: Walt Stoneburner)

Last week I attended the first ever Solo PR Pro Summit. It was an amazing event with a great lineup of speakers. The information shared was too valuable to languish in the “land of knowledge never applied” so I decided to try a different approach.

Post conference I started my day off with the #workhacks idea presented by Sarah Evans. As someone who was a Six Sigma trainer I truly appreciate efficiency improvements that are repeatable and help you reproduce the same high quality results in less time. The idea of #workhacks is to get more done in less time by strategically automating tasks and centralizing workflow to one hub.

My first workhack was to set up an account with Tracky which would function as my centralized hub for projects, ideas and status updates. Tracky will take time to really use effectively but is one of those hacks that has immediate payoff.

I cannot possibly implement everything I learned at the summit so made a prioritized list of tips that I could begin hacking away at over the next several months. I used Tracky to set up tips as tracks with links to the accompanying presentations and other resources that will help me work my way through putting insight into action. I can track my progress, and break up larger tasks into milestones. I can also add people to each track. This allows me to add subcontractors, subject matter experts or accountability partners to each specific project.

By using a project management approach, I am treating myself like a client (thanks to Heather Whaling for the reminder on this one) with a commitment to work on and not just in my business. The bonus is that I also have a personal development plan for the year to keep me growing, learning and becoming an even greater resource for clients.

How about you, do you have workhacks that help you to be more productive?

Painting by Numbers

August 10, 2009 by Karen Swim

: Image via Wikipedia

Written by Karen D. Swim

When I was 10 my mother took me to the art store. I was not exactly artsy; I could not even draw a straight line. Therefore, it never occurred to me that this trip was anything more than another outing with my mom.

We traveled through the aisles and my eyes could not drink in the array of artistic tools fast enough. Paper, easels, brushes and paints seemed to dance and dazzle before my eyes. The blood rushed to my head as I excitedly took in the adventure. We finished shopping and I stood at the checkout counter as the kaleidoscope of images flashed through my mind. When I finally came down from my art candy rush, we were home and I was the proud owner of a paint-by-numbers set.

I stared at the box and read the description. I put it on my desk and stared at the picture of what my final masterpiece would resemble. For several weeks, the box sat unopened, ripe with possibilities. I peered at it sometimes with a mixture of anger as it taunted me to go ahead and mess it up. Some days, I even wore my beret and spoke in French around it to capture the mood of true artiste. Mom patiently encouraged me in her sweet way until I finally mustered the courage to open the box.

I laid out my materials and imagined that I was in a French countryside. I began to follow the numbering system to bring my sailboats alive on the canvass. I dipped my brush in the watercolors, tongue firmly planted to one side of my mouth to steady my hand. I checked my progress against the picture on the box unconvinced that I could pull it off but refusing to give up. After a day of blue paint here, grey paint there I began to drift from the “rules.” The waves had so many colors and I tired of the tedious and constricting process so I painted on my own, swirling paints in my best Monet impression. I went back and forth between the rules and my own way until the painting was completed.

I signed it at the bottom carefully making cursive letters with and showed my mom. There were spots where bits of paint had gathered in a little clump creating bumpy places on the smooth canvas. Mom seemed not to notice and beamed as if I had painted the Sistine Chapel. She framed it and proudly hung it on the wall. Every visitor to our home was taken to my “wall” where mother would proudly point and exclaim, “K painted that.” Each would dutifully smile and mutter an appropriate platitude as I hid from view completely mortified.

I should have known then that I would somehow always have a love-hate relationship with structure. I felt guilty for abandoning the numbering system and cheating the rules. Would the paint-by-numbers people come after me and label me a fraud? Was it really a painting if I didn’t do it their way?

Yet, I also felt constricted by boundaries that seemed only to fit for a little while. I liked order but found myself equally drawn to disorder. Perhaps it was a mirror of my own doubt about my capabilities. Could a girl who could not draw a straight line and frequently bumped into things really possess talent?

I continued to bounce in and out of the lines somehow finding my way. I never broke real rules but frequently used guidelines as a base from which I created my own course. As an adult, I have come to realize that those boundaries may have been like the training wheels on my big girls bike. I only needed them until I did not.

I’m with Stupid

November 4, 2008 by Karen Swim

Image by swanksalot via Flickr

Written by Karen D. Swim

I sat staring at my computer screen. There were words there and many of them even made sense but it dawned on me I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. You see, I’m writing a novel. At least I think it’s a novel. Three days into this NaNo thing, and I came face to face with my utter stupidity. I am clueless. I laughed at my utter lack of knowledge. I had never studied character or plot development, had I? If I ever knew anything before, I sure as heck couldn’t recall it today.

So, I sat and laughed at my arrogance. I was writring a novel without a clue. It made me wonder how many other things I didn’t know. Turns out I know more than I think and I know less than I think. I became prettty comfortable with being stupid for the moment. It wasn’t so bad. I remembered the words of my Appraiser professor, “If you don’t know something, fess up and get yourself some learning.” So, I figured fessing up to stupidity was actually a pretty smart move.

Wiser minds, like Jamie Grove, had warned this would happen. So I learned from his words. Lillie had warmly encouraged us all to give ourselves to write absolute green dreck. So l learned from her words. I had no idea where this story was going so I asked my characters. Turns out they had pretty strong ideas and even introduced me to some new people. So, I forged on typing my sometimes green dreck on the screen.

The experience helped me see some other things in my life from a new perspective. I grew excited, as I looked at my marketing plan and admitted my stupidity. I went in search of knowledge to learn what I did not know or to relearn what I knew in a new way. Things I had once ignored suddenly appealed to me. I was stupid and my resistance was gone. I became energized as I sought to fill in those empty spaces.

At the end of the day, a friend came to me and declared she needed my help. I laughed at the irony and gladly filled in her empty spaces.

Have you ever come face to face with your lack of knowledge? How did it make you feel?