Learning Curves

In the beginning everything has a learning curve and depending on the complexity of the what you are trying to learn that curve can be very long or very short. Life has a real long learning curve however my thoughts here are in regard to learning software that will support your needs/wants/desires within the business environment.

For example lets look at Excel: If one only needed to know how to use Excel to do the household budget one could learn that in less than a day however if data analysis of large and different or varying amounts of data is in your interest (as well as presentation of that data) you will have to spend some time learning and understanding all of the tools that Excel provides, there are many. To start with you may take a class to get some hands on experience with some of the tools however once you know the tools then comes the time spent in applying the various tools to your data.

In this case applying I mean learning and learning means trial an error in most cases. It means playing, experimenting. evaluating, it means a great number of things all of which are part of the learning curve. I guess if you do not need to know much you won’t have a big learning curve however if you really need to “know"" something you will have to spend time working with the tools and potentially making mistakes – one thing that adults are prone to dislike. For a good learning experience making mistakes is one of the best learning tools. If it doesn’t work so what undo it and do it again but understand what you did that didn’t work from that you will learn what does work. As a side note you do not have to tell anyone about all your mistakes unless of course you are the instructor. 

I have had people say to me “I wish I knew what you know about Microsoft Word (or Excel)” and my response is “if you make as many mistakes as I have you will be an expert”. You cannot be afraid to try. This is very difficult to get across to people who are forced to make career changes they had not planned on. People who have been working a drill press are finding it difficult to adjust to a computer. I keep telling them to become a kid again and be willing to take some chances and be willing to realize you will not get it all in one sitting. Also no one uses all that Excel can do.

We learn what we need to do our job the best way possible, realizing that these tools are much more powerful. I understand Pivot Tables in Excel however I am always running into people that use them everyday and by experimenting and “playing” they can take Pivot Tables to a whole new level.

Remember life is always changing and learning something all the time can help reduce other life long boredom’s as well as keeping your mind active. I have been told that keeping your mind active and learning could be a prevention for Alzheimer’s. Who knew!