A few years ago I dedicated an entire year to education, finding all the free courses I could online, and signing up for inexpensive mini courses in my community where I could develop a skill or learn something, anything, new.

I feel like this year will be no different.  With more time at home to let my wheels turn, I thought that it was time to tackle a few things.

First, I updated my resume.

With so many great templates out there now, I found one that suited my style and forced me to creatively highlight my interesting background of experience in order to keep everything to one page.  I’ve learned to keep the verbose job descriptions to myself in the event I need to explain the details, while keeping the main copy as short and sweet as possible.

FYI, I did make the mistake of initially using ZIPJOB to write a resume for me.  I paid $100+ for the basic package and all my “writer” did was cut and paste the various pieces of information I gave her into a Word document, and didn’t even ensure the older work history was in the past tense, or that any of the dates or cities matched the correct jobs.  She did add four sentences…but $100 for four sentences didn’t seem fair considering I had to make my own corrections multiple times.  (To date, I have emailed the company three times in six months and STILL no response…so don’t believe the message that they “will work with you until you are satisfied.”)  Save your money!

After the disappointment of losing $100, I found that it was actually just easier to do it myself.  I wish I would have looked for available templates before contacting a company because my new resume looks awesome now!

I’ve also been catching up on some Great Courses.

If you’ve never experienced a Great Course, you may want to look into the options…there are many!  And please don’t freak out regarding the price.  We get The Great Courses catalog and even though the “regular” prices are a few hundred dollars for a set of 24-36 30-minute lectures, they are almost always running crazy sales.  (Especially around the major holidays).  All the courses that we’ve purchased so far have been around $30…each!  That’s an awesome value for a lecture series on a topic you already love, or want to learn more about.

Exercise!!

Well…I have been exercising more than before, so that is a start.  I completely understand that remaining at home most of the time is not good for the body, mind or soul, so it’s very important to stay moving any way you can.  However, I don’t have the motivation that I did when I was younger, so I’m considering it a personal win that my short workout sessions are actually occurring three days a week.  I could certainly do more, and I could certainly work out for longer periods of time…but at least it’s a start.

I haven’t dabbled in the virtual museum tours yet, but I feel like that is the next thing I may want to try!  I love going to any type of museum, and if we still need to be cautious at the moment, I will gladly take advantage of what is currently accessible from my house.

Anyone out there taken the time to put energy into bettering yourself in some way?  I’d love some more ideas!