Instilling the habit of lifelong learning is a key leadership trait. Personal and professional development is an ongoing process that we must totally embrace as leaders. Staying ahead of the curve on trends relevant to your profession, understanding leading edge thinking, keeping your finger on the pulse of the ever-evolving and expanding body of knowledge relevant to you profession, and keeping up to with the latest and greatest technology requires dedicated TIME and purposeful attention.
So, how do we fit personal and professional development time into our already busy calendars?
Consider the FOUR HABITS outlined below, all of which relate to instilling the habit of reading as a key component of your lifelong learning plan.
The Four Habits of Lifelong Learning:
Habit 1 - Listen to Audio Books on a Regular Basis
Habit 2 - Regularly Browse Your Local Bookstore
Habit 3 - Keep Reading Material Readily Available
Habit 4 - Set Aside Time in the AM and PM For Reading
A previous eZine issue discussed ideas and suggestions for helping you to develop and sustain the habit of listening to audio books as a component of your lifelong learning program. We'll focus this week on Habit 2 - Regularly Browsing Your Local Bookstore.
Habit 2 - Regularly Browse Your Local Bookstore
How often do you and your spouse and/or family visit your local area bookstore?
Bookstores have become a gathering place to browse the latest best sellers, pick up a copy of your favorite magazine, indulge in quick cup of tea or coffee, have a quiet conversation. or meet with a friend or business associate. For many of us, at least one of the major national bookstore chains has a store within 20 to 30 minutes drive time of our home or within a few minutes drive of our office.
An excellent habit to develop as part of your lifelong learning program is to visit your local bookstore once a week or so, and follow the "Weekly Browsing Routine" outlined below.
Keep these two points in mind as you practice the Browsing Routine:
- Unlike a novel, it is NOT necessary that a business or personal development book be read cover to cover. Once you give yourself "permission" to read only certain parts of a book or scan certain sections of a book you liberate yourself from that feeling of incompleteness which accompanies an incomplete reading.
- It is also NOT necessary to read a book in the order of the chapters presented. While some books do follow a logical sequence -- with each succeeding chapter building upon the previous chapter, many books are written in a manner where chapters are independent of each other.
Weekly Browsing Routine:
- Locate the aisles in the bookstore dedicated to your areas of interest: Business, Management, Leadership, Personal Development, Self-Help, Careers, Technology, etc.
- Browse the titles and choose books that look interesting or relevant for you. I usually end up with a stack of five to eight books on various topics.
- Find a place to sit with the stack of books you've selected.
- Read the back of the book, review the table of contents and quickly SCAN a few chapters to decide if (1) you want to spend more time with the book or (2) you are not interested in the book.
- For those books that interest you further, choose a couple of chapters that appeal to you and begin reading the material in those chapters looking for important points and learning nuggets.
- In the course of about 45 minutes, I will have scanned three or four books in detail and read several chapters in each. I ALWAYS pick up useful information, tips, techniques, ideas and learning points.
- If a find a particular book that REALLY appeals to me, that I'd definitely like to read further and retain for my personal library, I'll buy the book.
- Over the course of about a month, I typically find that I'll have bought about two books for detailed reading, and that I have scanned dozens of books.
- For the books that I do buy, I usually do NOT end up reading the entire book, but the books remains in my library for future reference.
Instilling the habit of reading into your personal and business life can be truly transformational for you. Consider the routine of visiting your local bookstore on a weekly basis.
