We often find ourselves planning things out over the calendar or academic year. One example of this being the resolutions which I have set myself which therefore represent targets for this calendar year. I have set myself targets around blogging, reading, twitter and also to a lesser extent making progress on my health and fitness. Of each of these items, working on my health and fitness is the one which causes me the most difficult as I am just not the exercising type of person.
#29daysofwriting has caused me to pause and reflect a little on my approach. We are now on day 4 of #29daysofwriting with this being my 4th posting. Never in the 4 years of blogging have I ever managed 1 posting on each of 4 consecutive days. In actual fact I doubt I have ever managed 4 postings within a given month. Yet, I intend and am focused on achieving 1 posting on each of the 29 days of February, amounting to almost as many posting as I have ever created. #29daysofwriting has focused me on achieving a bigger goal than originally intended (My new years plan was for 2 postings a month or 24 postings across the year) focused within a short and condensed period of time.
This makes me wonder as to whether I have been focused on planning for a marathon where instead I should be looking more at a series of sprints. Maybe in terms of fitness the issue is I cannot see myself regularly engaging in jogging or other fitness activities. I am looking too much at the longer term, at the marathon and as such I find excuses, such as the current temperature, to justify why I am unable to truly get started. Instead I might have a better chance of success if I create a shorter term more focused plan. Maybe I do #30daysofjogging obviously when the weather is a little more conducive of outdoor activity.
Motivation plays a key part here as clearly my previous motivation for blogging and for jogging wasn’t sufficient to get me making series in roads and improvements in my practice. My motivation to tweet on the other hand has been high allowing me to achieve and sustain a high level of involvement. Although I wanted, which is different from being motivated, to improve blogging and exercise, the low motivation plus focus on the more difficult longer term has meant that I have barely if ever got started. A high intensity burst may allow me to get over the initial motivation issues.
I wonder whether such high intensity sessions may also be applicable in learning, augmenting our usually longer term focus.
Technology and Learning