2A - Journal writing - "Clearing away mental clutter"

As a Recruitment Consultant with everything being so KPI driven I work well when working towards targets.

I agree that writing things down in lists helps you to de-clutter the mind. Today I decided to create a sheet to help me map out my weeks by lists and tables therefore I can reflect on my targets and look at correlations of figures - For example - The more candidate calls I make the more leads I generate ect. By spotting these trends by keeping a diary I can reflect on what things I am doing and what I am neglecting I can then reflect on my sheet every Friday and look to see where I can make improvements. 

I will keep you posted on how I find this.

2A - The Gibbs Model - Reflecting rather that just "doing"

Having reflected on ways to create a journal that would be effective to my learning and how it can help me to develop my professional career. I want to try a few methods to see which is the best method for me to develop moving forwards.

The Gibbs Cycle allowed me to reflect on my professional day to day experiences rather than just DOING - which is something I quite often did - Doing and going through the motions. 

You should go through a series of stages which will get you to think about (reflect on) your experiences. This begins with fairly concrete questions that ask you to describe what happened, and how you feel. You should then evaluate the positives, which you want to repeat next time, as well as the negatives, which you want to improve. 

Please find example bellow:

Task 2A - Reflective Journals

When I looked at the second part of the module and I saw the journal writing task - I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of writing a descriptive journal of my day. I have never been a fan of talking about my emotions never mind writing in depth descriptions of my days. 


So I decided to do more research into why keeping a journal would be beneficial. 

Do Journals help you have a better connection with your values, emotions, and goals?

"By journal writing about what you believe in, why you believe it, how you feel, and what your goals are. Some argue that you better understand your relationships to those things. This is because you must sort through the mental clutter and provide details on why you do what you do and feel what you feel."

I sometimes feel writing things down can make things clearer - Sometimes when faced with overwhelming workloads - making a list/ writing things down can man you feel less overwhelmed by it - seeing it written down on paper. In essence it is just clearing away mental clutter to allow you to think straight. 

My professional work as a Recruitment Consultant is so KPI driven - constantly working towards targets and goals - Aswell as my performance goals, I am going to experiment with different ways to have a journal.

1. Creating lists
2. Descriptive journal 
3. Collating my achievements
4. Using different models to reflect in my journal rather than a scene by scene what happened.
5. Collating different stats for the week and reflecting on how I can improve 

I will have a look at the different ways of keeping a journal and will find the best way to develop my professional career.

Research 

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/journal-writing-5-smart-reasons-why-you-should-start-doing-today.html