I was at a learning conference quite recently, and I was not alone in thinking that we need to rethink how we learn at work.

During the industrial age, factory owners understood that they could maintain their competitive advantage by keeping the machines they used up-to-date. Periodically, they would replace their machinery not because it had worn out, but because rapid output was how you stayed ahead of your competitors. If a new machine could accelerate output, its cost could be justified.

In the information age, this constant process of retooling is as necessary as ever, but we now need to think about retooling our minds. People often say that what they studied in school has almost no relevance to what they do today. People are either doing something completely different, or, even if they do work in the same field as their college major, things have changed completely.

The attached video provides a terrific suggestion: spend just five minutes every single day learning something new. When learning becomes a habit, it also becomes an addiction — about the only addiction that helps you get better every single day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIyX4EAVn1s