Refection on Thing 5

So here we are at Thing 5 already. Thing 5 is all about reflective practise. Something which i am very interested in as i am currently chartering. However, the more i learn about reflective practise the more i understand that it is a tool that can be used throughout your working and private life. The skill of being able to sit back and assess performance can be used for everything we do. There are two aspects to this that i find difficult, the first is finding time in the current climate of more for less. All professionals are finding more work passed their way as the number of professionals in their organisations shrink. However, to maintain any professional development needs effort. I can see that, in the same way that i have set aside time to do the 23 things, i need to set aside part of my week to reflection.

The second element i think i will find difficult is perhaps the most crucial, to reflect and understand where you might need to make changes is one thing but to implement those changes is more of a challenge. It would be all to easy to sit and reflect, to write out for yourself areas that need development, training or a simple change in aproach and leave it at that. The follow through is what makes it effective, and is probably the most challenging thing to achieve. Again this probably comes down to making time to make things happen.

In conclusion i can see the importance of reflective practise, the need to make time to make it happen and to follow up on the results. So in the spirit of reflective practise i am going to commit myself to half an hour each week to dedicate to this. We shall wait and see how many times this half hour is hijacked by other things but it is definately worth trying.