Kick Starting
As a definition
getting re-started after bogging down on a repurposing / project / paper / activity / reading.As a practice
While working on an activity for a while (some notes, or a paragraph or two), you might find that you bog down, slow, even stop. Nothing to say. Said it all.More than likely, you started by reciting what you already know. You now ran out of stuff to recite and need to find something else to work with. Learning means starting with what you know already, reciting it - and recognizing when it runs out. KickStarting means finding out something new to you.
Here's How
- Be ready to throw out whatever you have so far.
- Go back to any assigned readings. Read. Annotate. Aggregate your annotations into clusters of stuff. Newish style: Compose those notes right in your blogging window. Rearrange. Old style: Use stickies for your notes, title each note, arrange the stickies on your wall or desk to see patterns. Older style: use 3X5 cards. Even older: annotate the margins while you illuminate the opening capital.
- Use search terms to google. Select half a dozen sites or pages to look at. Aggregate and annotate (delicious, diigo, or links and notes to your blog space). These are your new assigned readings. Use them as a way in to restarting.
- Switch modes: move from expository prose to poetry, or shift from PPT to expository. Or change tools with mode: compose in prezi. Find an online art tool and create a multiframe cartoon.
- Get out of town. Grab a laptop or moleskine, find a coffee shop, restaurant, whatever. Work there.
- Grab a paragraph long quote from an assigned reading or elsewhere and answer it.
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CategoryAdvice
