I was lucky enough to join one of my clients on their “Productivity September” team challenge. It is an interesting fact that a 2% increase in productivity each day will give you an extra work week each year! The aim of the challenge was for each team member to choose two LinkedIn training from a pre-determined list; watch them and report back at the end of the month on the following:
- three main take-aways you took from the course
- one thing that you have already implemented
- 3 things that you learnt that you have implemented
- 1 benefit you have experience by implementing 1 of the above ideas.
I am always open to personal development and improvement, so I welcomed the change to be involved. Scrolling through the list of options, the two courses that appealed to me most were:
1. Improving Your Listening Skills
2. Time Management: Prioritizing Time & Tasks
The first one “Improving Your Listening Skills” was particularly interesting to me as it is an area I have been working on. The course was excellent, so much so that I actually watched it twice to ensure that I didn’t miss anything. My three take-aways were to:
- Remove distractions when speaking to people (eg, phones, email alerts)
- Instead of interrupting, write down what you want to say and say it when the person has finished speaking.
- When having video discussions, ensure that you always use video in order to make eye contact with everyone.
The second course that I chose, “Prioritizing Time & Tasks”, explained the interesting concept of creating a firewall to filter your tasks through in order to ensure that you prioritize your tasks by which ones will add the most value. My three take-aways from this course was:
- focus on what of most valuable to you.
- focus on what will bring you the best results in the quickest time.
- make time to get time.
With each member of the team sharing three good ideas about the ways that they have improved their productivity, the Company now has a large pool of suggestions for all members to choose from. There were so many interesting take-aways that others had found from the courses that they took and has encouraged me to try more of the recommended courses.
Are there any LinkedIn or other personal development training courses that you have tried and would recommend?