Reflecting on this week brings to mind more family activities than learning experiences. Today was mother’s day and my mother arrived on Friday from California to visit. Needless to say there was a lot of change to the regular routine with these two events that directly impacted the attention I gave my assignments. At the beginning of the week I was very focused on getting the reading and assignments done early and as the week progressed closer to my mother arriving that focus shifted, resulting in a mad dash the night of the due date. All that being said, my mother’s arrival went smoothly, we had a lot of good family time and I wouldn’t change those aspects of this week – even with the mad dash.
Responding to the specific reflections about this week:
What would I keep doing? Specific to school and this program the one thing that I consistently try to do is starting the reading and assignments early in the week. I think this is the primary thing that I will continue doing. I understand the benefits it gives me and feel that it sets me up for success for the week as well as helping me feel more prepared for the lives sessions, that I will be able to meaningfully contribute to the discussions. I also appreciate the grace period it gives me in case anything unexpected comes up – as can typically be counted on to happen, such as happened this week. Beyond that I feel that my schedule is an acceptable combination of work, family, school, downtime and sleep. Until a better way of doing things presents itself I will continue on in what I hope is the most effective way to meet all of my goals and requirements.
What would I stop doing? There is little that I would change about my process, there are a lot of moving parts in my life right now and I feel that I have maximized my time as best I can. Between family, work, school, sleep and some downtime in the garden I have very little opportunity to adjust how my time is spent. In theory I could say that I would focus more on my studies instead of working with my plants and that would be a mistake, that is my time to relax/recharge/get centered, whatever title you want to give it and I can become sullen if I remove that time. In the same vein family time, especially with my son is very valuable and won’t be changed. Perhaps stopping working thru lunch and use that as a time to review the readings or plan my evening at home. Hopefully as next week becomes more routine I will have a more clear path forward on something I can stop doing or change.
What would I start doing? Knowing that requirements on my time are not going to change much in the coming months such as work, family, school, and sleep this requires me to get creative on things that I would start doing. Because I am such a slow reader I intend to find an audio book of the assigned books for this class and listen to them while I’m at work. This will let me multi-task and maybe, hopefully, free up some of my time. I have actually been intending on doing this since the start of this program and going thru the process of finding the book and putting it on my phone has consistently gotten lost in the shuffle. I am going to use this reflection process as a reminder and kick in the behind to do it tonight so I am ready to start tomorrow trying something new and hopefully improving my learning experience.
Link to my Mastery Journal https://rlangsmithmasteryjournal.home.blog/
Richard Langsmith's Mastery Journal 