Power Up Your Mind: Learn faster, work smarter

At certain times of the year, I take quiet time and think through what I
have seen. Then I let my mind wander around the parallels and meanings.
I often work by association.

There are two main aspects to the skill of reflecting: thinking about

your experiences, and thinking about the process of your learning.

Looking back and learning from experiences

Effective reflection requires you to be open and exploratory. It is also

important not to be defensive and not to take things personally.

There is a tendency not to bother to reflect on the things that

go well, because you are happy and already mentally moving on to

your next project. The same is true with regard to things that go

badly. For different reasons, you want to move on, to forget all that

happened, it fact to pretend it never happened.

It is slightly more common to take stock of challenging

assignments that you manage to complete. Something in the nature

of these, like a difficult walk up a mountain when you nearly get

lost in thick fog, induces camaraderie and sharing. It seems natural

and part of bonding to share your thoughts and feelings when you

have survived, just as it does back in the pub after an adventure on

a mountain.

What about you? Which kind of experiences do you find it easiest to reflect on: the ones that

have gone well, the ones that really challenged you, or the ones that went wrong in some

way? You may want to try keeping a learning log to explore your own experiences.

Later in this chapter there are some specific suggestions as to how

you might like to reflect on experiences and how you can overcome

the barriers to reflection that exist in most workplaces.

Looking back on how you learned something

In the context of learning to learn, it is your capacity to reflect on

how you went about learning something that you will find particu-

larly useful. If you are going to develop new techniques, you need

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