brain food

~ click image to make biggerer ~

I’m going to be studying marketing. Specifically, I’m going to be learning about digital marketing and analytics. I’m changing course at work. I won’t be needed in the traditional financial functions so I am swerving into getting our brand out there and bringing in more business. I’m good with getting new information into my brain. I love learning new things.

I’ve signed up for two courses from the online college course hub, Cousera. They offer free classes from some big universities. They are non-credit earning classes but the information you get is good. If you want to pay a nominal fee, like eighty dollars, you can get a certificate, but I won’t need those. The classes I’m taking are Marketing in a Digital World and Digital Analytics for Marketing Professionals: Marketing Analytics in Theory. Both are in the Digital Marketing Specialization and are from the  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Aric Rindfleisch and Kevin Hartman respectively.

What’s going to be really great is that I can do the courses while at work. My boss is excited that I’ve taken the ball on this and decided to learn what we need without anyone asking and that it won’t cost anything except my time, so when I told him, he insisted I do it on company time. I like my boss.

I signed up for the classes last night. They are “at your own pace” rather than with set starting dates and weekly goal dates. They are four weeks long with an estimated six to eight hours of course and study time needed each week. While looking for the word “deadline” (required looking online for due date related words and then going to do some dishes before my tired brain regurgitated the word I wanted - this shit pisses me off no end), I found a website that outlines the project management tasks and timelines, so I guess everything has a good side. I’ve totally lost track of where I am in this tale. Oh, yeah, no deadlines. That makes life a little easier although deadlines are handy if you are procrastinator like I am, so we’ll see how it goes. I’ve not take a self-directed class yet.

It’s good I can do this while at work because I’m exhausted. I did not want to get out of bed this morning. I’ve been getting up each day this week at four so I can get everything done that I need to get done. My To Do list is huge. I’ve put it all on stickies and I’m going to use a Science Project Display Board as my planning board. I’ve done loads of things this week and have a pile of completed stickies. I put the start date in the top right hand corner, write in the task and then put write “done” when I’m done along with the date I’ve finished. My little pile of done tasks feels good since I haven’t done much of anything for about a year. I was feeling quite out of control. It was so bad that I couldn’t even manage to write lists, something that I normally do all of the time. I can go through a steno pad a month when I’m in my right mind.

It’s seven. Time to go walk.