I learned that a fantastic friend or fabulous colleague can really turn those days around.

I count myself as an introvert. I’ve never done the true Myers Briggs but I know I need my alone time to recharge. That means I sometimes underestimate the power of connecting with those in my community. To me, community is what others call their “network”. I just happen to dislike that word – it’s scary to me. So I call it my community instead.

Anyway, I decided to reach out to my community for inspiration and wound up getting both inspiration and a confidence boost.

My lesson for today is to never underestimate the power of your personal community and to not forget the importance of having one.Even when the introvert in me wants to be a hermit!

Today I learned about Short Term Traffic Control. I know, it’s a strange topic to write about but why not? I have been asked (told) to create a course about traffic control. I know nothing about traffic control and my subject matter expert isn’t readily available. So that means that if I want to get something designed, I have to research it myself. So, today was the day. This project has been lurking for awhile and I’ve gone from thinking it was quite straight forward to thinking it was highly complex and now I’m back at it being straight forward again.

Besides learning more about traffic cone placement and reflectors than I could ever need, I also re-learned how to organize myself and my thoughts. When I started this morning I was very scattered. I wasn’t sure how to begin. Sure, I had learning objectives I’d drafted as part of the project proposal and scope but those don’t get you very far when you can’t gather your thoughts. After fumbling around for a bit, bouncing between reading bits of regulation, searching for random, semi-related images, and general procrastination, I decided to start with one question…

“If I had to go out and do traffic control tomorrow, what would I do to teach myself?”

That was it! Voila! All of a sudden I was reading the Ministry of Transportation manual making notes like mad with one goal in mind – I have to go be a safe and effective traffic control person. The whole picture actually became so clear I could see myself in a bright orange vest holding a traffic control paddle (yup, learned the real name too!).

So, besides learning about traffic control I also rediscovered one of the tools I learned early in my instructional design days – put yourself in your learners’ shoes!