Hey, everybody. Happy end of 2023. It is a great time to stop

and reflect as the days are getting darker and darker as we

approach the darkest night of the year, it's a time to bring a little light

into our lives and, and reflect on what could be. And I've been thinking about

a couple things. First of all, there's something that's been on my mind.

At the end of every podcast, I say something like, take some time to level

up every single day. So there's that piece. Hold on to

that. I'll be back to it. The other piece I've been thinking of a lot

about and spending a lot of time in, not just for my work, but for

myself and for some other charitable responsibilities I have,

is think about scheduling. I'm not a big

scheduler. I don't really love having detailed plans. But what I'm finding is

that it is a thing that helps me move forward. It helps me know what

I should be focusing on, where I should be going. And I don't always love

it, but I'm finding the great power in ability to look ahead and say,

like, yes, that is the destination. That's where I need to get to, where I

need to be, when I need to be. So when I started putting these two

thoughts together, something occurred to me that I think could

be really helpful in 2024 for me and maybe for you.

So I'm bringing it to you. We don't often

schedule and give ourselves time to level up. We don't give

ourselves time to improve. We say in earnest, like, oh,

yeah, take some time to learn. But I think what we do is we like,

take some time to learn, but get everything else done. Don't bother to actually dedicate

time to it. And what I'm feeling like and what I think could be very

powerful in 2024 if we change that and actually say, let's

build in space to get better, let's build in

space. Time to play, time to experiment, time to try

things. Now, here's the thing that I've learned over my years in working in

video. The truth is, the time that I've learned best

things like using video or really doing anything, is when I had something I needed

to do or wanted to do. When I've just gotten to explore and

try to make something, not because I'm going to use it, not because it's being

driven by a deadline, but because I needed to do something. I

wanted to do something. One example of this is about six years ago,

we were building the Techsmith Academy and the first kind of videos that we were

making for the Techsmith Academy are more scenario kind of based.

There's a story that goes along with it, which meant scripting meant

heavy. Storyboarding meant a lot of things, things that

I had kind of done but never had really done. But when I

gave myself time to really script and do that and then bring it

into video production in a way that I'd never done before, I got to learn

so much. My learning curve was like, yeah, this is really hard,

but I learned so much faster. And I think the reality is that if

you want to get better at anything in 2024, you need to schedule time

for it. You need to give yourself time to play, to explore, to make stuff,

and not necessarily, again, with the end purpose of, you're going to publish it,

but take the time and give yourself the time to make

something. Now, I don't know what the frequency is going to look like for that.

That could be once a week, that could be once a month, that could be

once a quarter. It might be more frequent than that. But I

think find time to play, especially in video. I think video

is a lot about watching things and saying, hey, can I make something that looks

like that? It's about exploring structure and style and saying, like,

what if I move these things around? And I'm not worried about ruining

the project because it's got to get done by saying, like, let's change it

around a little bit. Give yourself a chance to look at something and say, can

I make that same look and feel for something for

me, just because I want to see if I can do it? And I bet

as you do, that you will learn so much faster. You will learn so much

more, because that exploratory learning opportunity is going

to give you the skills and tools that you need that are going to not

only allow you to do those cool things, but allow you to do the other

things, maybe better. You're going to find new ways to approach a

problem or an issue or thinking through, like, oh, you know what? I did that

before. Now let's apply it to this, and then you understand it better.

So as we go into the year of 2024, as

we shut off the darkness, as the winter solstice is upon us,

and we go on to the newest, brightest days

ahead, because hopefully 2024 is going to be amazing for you. I

hope that you take that time to give yourself some time to actually explore

the things that you're trying to do. And it could be

video. It could be anything that you're working on. If you're doing content

for your team, you're making instructional content, you're making

the best widget ever out there. Explore to see what you can do.

See how you can get better. But dedicate time to it. Don't just let it

be a thing that happens to you. Be

intentional. Be proactive. Be thoughtful in how you're going to do that.

Give yourself the challenge. Because otherwise you'll never learn as quickly as you

do if you give yourself that time. So thanks everybody.

I really am looking forward to 2024. More great episodes of the podcast,

more great comments, and here conversations on LinkedIn. Love to hear what you're

thinking about. What are you going into 2024 thinking about? Are you

thinking about something? How you're going to get better? Are you thinking about something that

you're like, man, I want to stop doing whatever it is. Put it

in the doobie doo down below. I'd love to hear it. And like we

always say, I hope you take some time to level up every single day. Thanks

everybody. Bye.