Continuing Education: The Complete Guide to Mastery

75 That’s my number. No, not that number.   75 is the number of continuing education classes, conferences, home studies, etc that I’ve completed since physical therapy school. Though the courses are many, it was probably too much in a short period of time. When quantity is pursued, quality suffers. Sadly, I didn’t figure out how to get the most out of each class until the latter end of my career. Two classes in particular stand out: Mobilisation of the Nervous System by the NOI Group, and ART lower extremity. Yes, the content was great, but these classes stood out for a different reason. You see, instead of just doing a little bit of prep work, I kicked it up a notch. I extensively reviewed supportive material, took impeccable notes, and hit all the other essentials needed to effectively learn. I was prepared, and because I was prepared I got so much more out of these classes than my typical fair.  The lessons learned in those courses stick with me to this day. For the stuff you really want to learn, I’ll encourage you to do the same. Here is the way to get the most out of your continuing education. By the time you are done reading this post, you’ll understand why I now recommend a more focused learning approach and fewer courses. Let’s see how to do it.  

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The 6-Step Method to Reading the Shit Out of Books

What Were We Talking About Again? If there is one thing I’ve struggled with over the years, it’s long-term retention. Though remembering course materials has had its challenges, the struggle is worse with books. Overconsumption was part of the problem. Trying to read faster, and across multiple unrelated books caused more detriment than use. Much as our attention spans can be overstimulated by abundant information on the internet, so to can we suffer this fate with reading? There are a lot of books after all. While narrowing my reading focus has helped quite a bit, improving my reading strategy was equally important. I remember one summer I made it my goal to learn how to shuffle cards. We played A LOT of cards on my family vacations, and I was tired of having to use the automatic shuffler or having someone else shuffle for me at the family card game. It was time to become a man, damnit! I shuffled anytime I had some free time during the day; which back when I was a kid led to multiple bouts of daily shuffling. By the end of the summer, I was unconscious with shuffling, and still am to this day. Frequent, quality repetitions at any task will likely lead to improvement. Learning material is no different, we must just foster an environment of multiple exposures to said material. Here’s my latest attempt at doing so.

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