Do you feel the pressure to learn “something” – just in case you need it someday?

Here I explain why you shouldn’t waste your time!

Throughout my career in project management, I’ve needed to continuously learn to make progress. You’ll need to do the same. But we can be wasteful by focusing our limited energy, focus, and time on the wrong things.

This is why “Just In Time Learning” beats “Just In Case Learning”:

1. Relevance and immediate application:  You need to pick up new skills or new pieces of knowledge to enable your work to progress.  This is immediately applied, reinforcing what you have learned and increasing retention.  Just In Case Learning involves learning things that may never be used, never applied and easily forgotten.  For example, I released a video about Gantt charts this week.  It will immediately be useful to anyone who needs to know what a Gantt chart is or how to create one.  It will be easily forgotten by someone with no interest or drive to create a Gantt chart.
2. Time-to-money conversion: Focused learning means that you only spend time acquiring the skills and knowledge that will have the maximum impact on your growth.  You can learn a skill that will multiply your value to your business or to the market, significantly raising your potential income. Consuming a broad range of topics requires the same amount of time and will make you interesting at parties, but won’t have the same impact on your income.
3. Adaptability and responsiveness: Just In Time Learning is dynamic, allowing you to adapt to new technologies, processes and market demands.  It can be customised to address specific needs as they arise.  Just In Case Learning is static, based on predetermined content that may not keep pace with the changing world.

So in most cases, if you feel a sense of guilt that you should be doing more, that you should be learning about something in your spare time – take a look at your immediate needs.  What skill do you need to be much better at that you’ve neglected?  Where is the skill gap in your team, and how quickly can you fill it?  Focus on developing that. 

Do it – just in time!