A Plan to Learn With

Where Do You Want To Go Today?

Suppose you needed to get something from your local shop. It could be some bread, or milk, or a jar of your favourite jam, or anything else that you usually buy. I guess that you would go towards the shop, rather than just walking around in circles:

A man walking in circles

Illustration By Frits

What you have inside your head is a PLAN! It says to you how you can get to that shop. Think about it:

  • You know where you want to go (the shop)
  • You know how to get there: walking, driving, catching a bus
  • You are aware of any potential problems (Is it raining?)
  • You know when you want to go (Now? This afternoon? Tomorrow?)

Image courtesy Thomas Cizauskas

Not a Shop, But a Something Else!

If you want to learn something (instead of buying something) you still need a plan. Here are the same four items:

  • What do you want to learn about?
  • What are you already good at (try “walking” 🙂 ), and how might this help you?
  • What problems might there be, and who can I ask for help?
  • By when will I have learned it?

What we are really talking about here is goal setting – there are a variety of different strategies to help you set goals. Checkout the Slideshare for more about gols and goal setting.

Just to help you, there is this Word document that you can use to write down your initial ideas. It is a blank template.

If you want to see a template with some of the spaces filled in for “Underwater Basket Weaving”, you can see it here.

Credits: Basket image: Vilseskogen, link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vilseskogen/3781517030/
Underwater image: photohome_uk, link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/photohome_uk/1495438762/.