Your Expertise is Boring!

Your Expertise is Boring!

Have you ever had an expert who is a PhD engineer and yet can't achieve the same level of success in their career as someone less qualified for the job? It's not necessarily because they're not talented or smart, but simply because their expertise is boring. The best way to keep yourself interested in a particular field of study or profession is to find ways to make it fun, even if that means finding unorthodox methods of learning. This can make it easier for you to learn more about your field and stay engaged with your learning.

Boring is the worst enemy of learning, and you should always be looking for ways to make it more fun. If you want to learn about a particularly boring topic in life, look for other people who are passionate about it and find a way to cross-pollinate your interests with theirs. Not only will you learn more about that particular field, but you'll also have a better appreciation for how much fun they're having doing it.

I've laid out some techniques (in the last article) which will help make learning things like taxes less tedious and suck less than doing your own taxes. Now I'm going to lay out some techniques which will help make learning new things fun. I'll start with an example. 

The Boring Wall

Have you ever heard of the Boring Wall? It's a common barrier in the Microsoft Windows Operating System, preventing the user from accidentally uninstalling any programs that they may have installed. However, it can also be used to make learning fun. As long as you know what programs you actually need to use, you can install new programs over and over again. Once you reach some kind of "critical mass" of installed programs (say it's 5), then your Boring Wall will activate and prevent further installation of any additional software. The idea is that once a certain number of apps are installed on your computer, they become "part of the system". Every time you want to add another app, you must first uninstall all the apps that you don't need.

This is a great technique because:

If you only use a handful of programs, then uninstall them all and start over when you download new software. That way the new software has no chance of conflicting with any of your existing programs. This means that the overall learning curve of using a tool is shorter. The apps that aren't getting used are at the bottom of your list, so if one day one does get used, then it's easy for you to find it. This is the same reason why you should make your desktop look like a cluttered desk, instead of getting rid of stuff when you're done using it. This forces a more active form of learning than simply roaming through a list looking for programs that you might want to use.

As with any collection of tools, eventually you will accumulate more than you need. It's important to realize that this is okay! The Boring Wall is just there to slow down the rate at which this happens, which will help prolong your learning experience. After all, eventually it will take longer for you to uninstall programs than it would to just re-install them from scratch.

It's also important to note that this concept isn't limited to software. It can also be used to learn any group of related skills, such as:

Learn enough about Linux so that you can uninstall programs with " dpkg -r ". Learn enough about web programming so that you can uninstall old designs from your server. Learn enough about Excel so that you can clean out the "XLStart" folder. Learn enough about VBA so that you know how to delete AutoExec macros from Excel workbooks.

Learn more here: 10 Ways to Be More Productive (And Get Things Done!)  http://www.productivechris.com/2013/10/20/10-ways-to-be-more-productive-and-get-things-done/

I've had a lot of fun with the Boring Wall technique, but I won't stop there. In the next article, I'll share some more fun ways to learn and make learning less boring. Thanks for reading!

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Your Expertise is Boring!

Click below to download the PDF version:

Click below to buy an Amazon Kindle version:

"Your Expertise is Boring!" is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial License . The images are from pixabay .com.

Posted by Christopher S. Scott at 9:39 AM 3 comments: Link :: Your Expertise  is Boring! Link • [[Your Expertise  is Boring!]]•Permalink • 12 hours ago • Share Link 07/03/2015 [OPEN] Your Expertise is Boring! A discussion on tools and techniques for learning things quickly (and a bonus tip for making learning less boring).

Expertise is Boring!

Have you ever had an expert who is a PhD engineer and yet can't achieve the same level of success in their career as someone less qualified for the job? It's not necessarily because they're not talented or smart, but simply because their expertise is boring. The best way to keep yourself interested in a particular field of study or profession is to find ways to make it fun, even if that means finding unorthodox methods of learning. This can make it easier for you to learn more about your field and stay engaged with your learning.

Boring is the worst enemy of learning, and you should always be looking for ways to make it more fun. This can be done in a variety of different ways, but the most important is to identify what's most fun about learning and focus your efforts there.

The Boring Wall

Have you ever heard of the Boring Wall? It's a common barrier in the Microsoft Windows Operating System, preventing the user from accidentally uninstalling any programs that they may have installed. However, it can also be used to make learning fun. As long as you know what programs you actually need to use, you can install new programs over and over again. Once you reach some kind of "critical mass" of installed programs (say it's 5), then your Boring Wall will activate and prevent further installation of any additional software. The idea is that once a certain number of apps are installed on your computer, they become "part of the system". Every time you want to add another app, you must first uninstall all the apps that you don't need. This is a great technique because: If you only use a handful of programs, then uninstall them all and start over when you download new software. That way the new software has no chance of conflicting with any of your existing programs. This means that the overall learning curve of using a tool is shorter. The apps that aren't getting used are at the bottom of your list, so if one day one does get used, then it's easy for you to find it.

Conclusion

This concept can be applied to a variety of different topics, such as:

Learn enough about Linux so that you can uninstall programs with " dpkg -r ". Learn enough about web programming so that you can uninstall old designs from your server. Learn enough about Excel so that you can clean out the "XLStart" folder. Learn enough about VBA so that you know how to delete AutoExec macros from Excel workbooks.

Learn more here: 10 Ways to Be More Productive (And Get Things Done!)  http://www.productivechris.