In some of my recent reading, I’ve stumbled across mentions of our “snacking” culture towards information. Many of these articles/blogs talk about how we are snacking on information instead of really learning about any one topic in depth. We do not dive deep into a topic or concept. We just take small bites of information as we need them.
Most of the articles/blogs I read attributed this to high amounts of information available to us online. We are overloaded on any certain topic so we can only skim many different sources to get what we need. We do not have time to plow through all of it, so we just grab what we can quickly.
I started thinking about how we do this with learning, too. We just take a small bite to get what we need for the moment. We do not get what we need to solve something long-term because we do not delve deep enough to get the big picture.
As a trainer I see this almost every day. What many people want are the “Hints and Tips” and not the explanation about why something works the way it does. Sometimes when I have the time to sit and explain how something works within the software, the person is amazed at how much this helps. They are able to see the big picture of how the software works.
I think that it is important to make sure that when you schedule training try to take a little extra time so that the trainer can explain why things work certain ways. That small amount of time (maybe just 30 minutes) can help you really grasp what is happening in the software. The next time you have an issue or problem occur, you can probably understand it better because you truly see why the software operates the way it does.
So, next time you plan your training, make sure to reserve a little time for some a big meal instead of just a snack!
