Sunday Book Club: BOOK BLITZ

Woollywotnots online book club launched in July. Its new, its free and its fun so come along and join in and add the above button in your blog. Please spread the word! You can talk about any books and there are a choice of four recommended craft and business books each month. The first book I chose to read was 1000 art journal pages by Dawn DeCries Sokol

This week, join in and do a BOOK BLITZ

This is something I do in woollywotnots’ mindmapping workshops and it is great fun.

The benefits of a book blitz are:

• getting a good overview of a book before you start
• A way of making notes and remembering what you are reading so that you take all the information in and gain a greater benefit from reading. You can add to the mindmap as you read.
• Super way to revise – encourage your children and any students you know to adopt this method. You can carry out a book blitz for specific chapters, as well as, the whole book
• Great way to share books with others
• You’ll be surprised at how much you can learn from a book, just by carrying out a book blitz alone, without reading the book! Try it and see!
• If you have children studying at the moment, have fun and do this together, or if you are a student yourself, grab your friends and do lots of book blitz together and share them in the woollywotnots forum.
• Carrying out a book blitz before starting to read a book can be beneficial so that you gain an overview and can see the structure of the book. As you flick through to complete the book blitz, you’ll see areas where you would like to focus and which are of most interest. If you are short of time, then you can go straight to those sections.
• Carrying out a book blitz at the end of reading a book is beneficial to summarise all you’ve learned from a book and a great way to revise over the whole book again.
• Here’s some instructions on how to carry out a book blitz. You can download the worksheet here.

Take a large piece of paper and your favourite pens. My favourite pens and recommendations can be found via this link.  The example below was done on A4, but the bigger the better. If you have big flipchart paper or big sheets of paper for art, then that is perfect! You can download the example below from this link.

Look at the cover of your book. I chose Creating You & Co Be the Boss of Your Own Career by William Bridges. Its is one of the woollywotnots bookclub recommendations for July.  

1. Decide on a central image for your book and draw this in the centre of your paper.
2. Find the sections of the book
3. Sections become main branches leading off from your central image
4. Then find the chapters of the book
5. Chapters become second level branches
6. In each chapter find any headings in the text
7. These become third level branches
8. Speed read the rest of the text (if required)
9. Add details
10. Share your mind map book blitz with friends and explain yours.
11. Celebrate!

What are you reading at the moment? Pop along to the forum and share your thoughts on the books you are reading. Can’t wait to see your book blitz too! Let me know on how you find them!

I really enjoyed reading ‘Creating You and Co” William Bridges, the author, talks about how in today’s business environment, workers must begin to think of themselves as independent contractors, not lifetime employees. He talks you through a process that examines the market’s needs and your own resources to find work that both satisfies and supports you. He provides a career development programme in four easy steps:

• How to discover and describe the unique mix of resoures that you bring to the new work place
• How to develop an eye for markets and use it to search for the best places to apply your resources
• How to combine the personal data about your resources with the external information about opportunitites into a viable product
• How to reinvent your career as a one person business, built around the creation and delivery of that product and how to create a practical plan to develop that business.

Part 1: WHY YOU NEED YOU AND CO has two chapters

In Chapter 1 ‘WHY IT’S SO HARD TO FIND A REALLY GOOD JOB’ – he talks about how jobs are changing and where to focus your energies. He advises on how you can look into the futre at what industries are developing. There are a list of questions to ask yourself.

In chapter 2, ‘FINDING YOUR LIFEWORK THROUGH YOUR D.A.T.A’ – the author discusses old qualifications and new qualifications and helps you to focus on your D.A.T.A – DESIRES, ABILITIES, TEMPERAMENT and ASSETS

Part 2: MINING YOUR D.A.T.A has four chapters

In chapter 3, ‘DESIRES:WHY YOU SHOULD DO WHAT YOU WANT’ – the author discusses why desires create effectiveness and how to identify your desires. He talks you through some key steps and there are some activities to do.

In chapter 4:. ABILITIES: WHAT ARE YOU GOOD AT?‘  – the question ‘do you know what your abilities are’ is asked and looks at what you can do! What are your abilities? There’s a chart for you to complete looking at all areas of your life – hobbies, interests, family life, friends, relationships, professional relationships, other ativities etc.

In chapter 5: YOUR TEMPERAMENT AND YOUR VOCATION’ – the author asks you to look at the core of who you are. What is your temperament and what does it tell you?

In chapter 6: IDENTIFYING YOUR ASSETS -  the chapter looks at skills, credentials, experiences and there’s a table to complete to work through an exercise.

Part 3: TURNING YOUR D.A.T.A INTO A PRODUCT has 4 chapters

In chapter 7: FINDING YOUR OPPORTUNITY – you examine your market, advice on how to identify potential markets and identify unmet needs. There’s a step by step exercise to follow.

In chapter 8: CREATING YOUR PRODUCT – looks at envisioning your market. The author talks about how you don’t need to be entrepreneur or have a cutting edge product. There’s an exercise to look at designing your product.

In chapter 9: RUNNING YOUR MICROBUSINESS -  the author looks at the future of small business and a whole series of steps on how to remodel your career into a business.

In chapter 10: MAKING YOUR PLAN AND GETTING STARTED – the final chapter covers how to create your business plan.

All in all a brilliant book and one I definitely recommend!

 

See previous book club postings here:

Week 1: Bookclub Launch

Week 2: Art Journals

Week 3 Reading Mission

Week 4: Book Blitz

Week 5: July Summary