I have completed the course about ‘Learning how to Learn” to improve my learning habit.
I have done schooling from government school of Nepal, my Mom used to teach there. Government schools back then (25 years back) were not in very good condition, we used to learn in our national language Nepali. However, they are improved in somehow, but everyone is looking for the English medium schools now-days. I was medium student in my primary level and pick the pace during middle class school. I had a pressure to make my parents proud. It stated when I was in 8th grade and I topped my class then I got motivated for more learnings. Apart from regular course I used to read other novel, comic books and poems. Every day I used to learn for few hours out of my regular study. During high school and in engineering I read more novels but till then I was reading all in Nepali language. I started to learn some self-help books and then others drama, Feminist books. Currently I finished the Mark Manson’s both books and started ‘Power of your Subconscious Mind’ by Dr. Joseph Murphy.
Learning is always the priority for me. Whenever I got time even in my office, I learned for 15-30 minutes. I want to read more. Sometimes I used to listen audio files. I am always inspired by my grandpa; he is 97 years old and still he is reading all the newspaper and other Hindu religious books. His favorite things that we bought for him is the books after chocolates. For me reading is important for the good sleep as well. I don’t want to be lack behind because of less knowledge, to upgrade myself I have to learn new trends, project management methods and new technologies. My professional role also demands this.
Talking about the biggest challenge, it was when I enrolled in high-school and all the courses were in English and since I didn’t study any other courses in English except the English subject itself before that time. And for me to grab the knowledge, to understand the course and even faced issue in speaking with classmates. That was the frustrating moment for me. Since I had started English language in class 4 to learn basics. I did admissions for Science group and learning for all the new courses was fun, but the language was always problem for me. Another biggest mental issue I faced during my Engineering when I was presenting in-front of like 100 peoples about my projects, that was embarrassing when I completed my Demo because I was not fluent. The good thing about it is that there is a familiarity in all of the exercises we work on and I’m pretty sure I understand them better this time around.
One of my biggest mental challenges is procrastination. I get excited in the beginning and then I fall behind, not because I don’t like to do the work. It’s slipping back to a bad habit when I was in college – cramming and last-minute project completion. Even though I am intelligent to it, I still manage to convince myself that I have enough time to do the work the day before it’s due and I end up with shoddy work or missed deadlines. I tend to find excuses/reasons why I don’t have to do the work which is lame. This behavior leads to anxiety and stress therefore a lack of sleep and the cycle goes on and on.
I used to use Jira for Project Management and then over the time we introduce Rally in our office to better visualize the progress of project and to track the individual’s effort. Over the time when it became easy for us to use same tool over and over again, I switch to Jira as Jira is more cost effective and may be company doesn’t want to use different tools in different department for the same nature of work. This time I switch the company and as I switch to new environment, I have to use new technologies and tools. Every minute I am learning new. Breaking bad habits takes practice since it took me a long time to do the bad habit. Taking a concept from Professor Oakley, practice makes permanent. I use the Pomodoro Technique, since I don’t have anything to distract me from the nature of work that I do, I will continue to do the distraction or find something else to do further extending my procrastination.
