Quality, Not Quantity

2012 was a year all about trying new things. I needed to get out of my funk from being laid off and generally being depressed. By setting a goal of learning something new each month, I forced myself to “get out there.”

Starting 2013, I knew it was less about trying everything and being busy and more about self-discovery and improvement. Instead of reading 80+ books that were silly romance throw-aways, I’ve set a more modest goal of 30 books, of which I hope the majority will be business or improvement related. If you’re interested, I keep Goodreads (widget on the side here) up to date with what I’m reading.

I’m really reassessing my life, as in May I will hit one of those “big” milestones of turning 30. There are certain things I haven’t done and I made a little bucket list to do them. Some are less immediately achievable than others, but at least putting it down in writing holds me responsible for them. To that end, I’ve also started journaling. Don’t worry, I have no intention of putting my daily thoughts/emotional baggage online. This is just for me and about clearing my head. Speaking of clearing my head, one of my favorite things to do is swing. I found a park near my house that’s always empty. Here’s a picture of the view, complete with my shoes, for your enjoyment. If you swing high enough, over the dune in front of me, you can see the Pacific Ocean. I love this park.

In the interest of self-improvement, I’ve started a few online training classes. From a professional point of view, I look forward to seeing what instructional styles have been chosen and how I might have altered the training had I been its designer. From an educational point-of-view, I hope this training will improve my life.

The purchased (all from Groupon) classes are:

• iOS and Android App Design
• TESOLS.com- TESOL certification
• Cisco IT Network Training Package

The free instruction classes are:

• Duolingo French
• Duolingo Spanish
• Skillcrush.

I like to think that I’m fluent in Spanish, so for Duolingo Spanish, I’m actually just taking all the tests to pass out of each level. If you aren’t familiar with this program, and want to learn a language, you need to check it out. I found it from Timothy Ferris (someone who I’d love to meet if anyone wants to set that up for me). He mentioned it on his blog, so I signed up. Today I received this email about how it’s more effective than Rosetta Stone (ironically how I originally started learning Spanish) and college courses (where I finished learning Spanish).

Over the course of the year, I’ll update on how my training with each of these is going. Right now, I haven’t started any of the purchased classes. In French, I’m level 2 with 85 points and 36 words. In Spanish (which I did in one afternoon as opposed to several days of French), I’m in Level 7 with 1048 points and 272 words. I discovered Skillcrush yesterday and have only done the first unit.

From a personal interest/professional development standpoint, I’ve also signed up to attend TedXMonterey in April. I can’t wait to see all of the inspiring speeches there. So, it’s not about all the things I can do this year, now it’s about how I’m doing things to make myself a better, happier person.

Tagged: Duolingo, free, Groupon, learning, paid, self-improvement