...This number - 3046% - is not pulled out of thin air. I'll explain how I got it. But first... What the hell is that Egu.lt portal and what can you experience?
I will share my experience of 3 months on this self-help portal, where some days I spent 6+ hours watching lectures in Lithuanian, despite the fact that I don't usually like watching videos and at first I thought I wouldn't find anything good on Egu.lt.
(I thought I'd find a level of free Youtube or Facebook posts. I was wrong.)
What is Egu.lt?
This is an online platform where you can find all kinds of video courses, seminars and lectures. I say "various" not because I want to give the impression that there's a lot of everything (a well-known trick of advertisers), but because... There is.
On this platform you can find more than 400 courses on:
- Self-confidence,
- Time management,
- Raising children,
- Couple, family relationships,
- NLP,
- Public speaking,
- Managing emotions,
- Customer service,
- Conflict management,
- Team building,
- Communication with the media,
- Business etiquette...
And then there are the completely niche hobbies: cosmetology, soap-making, photography...
These online courses are designed so that you get a video (lesson), a downloadable workbook, a knowledge test, and certificates that you can add to your CV or List of crazy goals.
(That's what I started doing. I'm so glad that the knowledge is framed in more than just my head!)
It can also be a substitute for your TV. Or a substitute for scrolling in the face book. Or a way to pass the time in your free time or a particularly boring job.
I did the latter.
I watched Egu.lt courses for 3 months during a boring job
(And when eating. I like to watch something while eating. They say it's unhealthy, but I do it anyway. And I don't regret watching Egu.lt trainings.)
In addition to your regular work - of writing and Onbo training maintenance - I have a side job, one of which is managing insurance contracts.
I find this job VERY boring and sometimes maddening, as I have to spend 30 hours every few months just dealing with my own and my colleagues' paperwork. From one pile to the next... I used to sometimes think that it was...
But.
What did I do to avoid sitting on Facebook and postponing the inevitable? In recent months, I've just been tuning in Egu.lt and I used to spend 6+ hours straight with him. Just. One course, two, three.
(Guess what happened!)
It was more enjoyable to do the work because now I was learning what I was interested in! Now I wasn't wasting time - I was literally investing it in my personal knowledge.
I have fully reviewed this course:
- How to commit to change in life?
- Rebefing
- 4 productivity strategies
- How to stop procrastinating and start acting?
- How can I get rid of excitement and other bad emotions?
- How do I present myself effectively to an employer in a job search?
- Fast reading
- The power of body language
- How to become rich? Review of Allen's books
- Self-coaching
- How to recognise and manage emotions?
- What are emotions?
- What is fear?
- Time management or how to love life
- 11 practical tips to save money when shopping
- Investment supervision
- Practical steps to investing - from account to strategy
- Introduction to the basics of investing
- Let's talk about your money...
- Long-term savings and investments
- Developing children's financial intelligence
- …
I watched a few more courses before bed (they were not too distracting, so I'd say it's pretty good) and one with a friend (the one about relationships) and I didn't like it).
(Indeed, I must admit...)
There were courses I didn't like. Simply. The lecturers made the experience too personal, made the words hard to understand...
But it may not be a problem for you - it just annoys me when lecturers give too much personal experience and too little research, and pronunciation is too differently valued.
There were only a few such inferior courses out of all the courses I looked at.
So here we are. Is Egu.lt 3046 % more useful than TV?
Television, funny and entertaining videos on the internet, on Facebook, have their advantages. However, you need to relax. I have written a whole book on the importance of rest. Letting off steam and just steaming with a cup of juice, water, tea or coffee in your hand is important.
...So should I give up TV and other entertainment and spend ALL my time Egu.lt portal?
No.
No need. Not necessary. You don't have to take all your free time to study. In fact, many people have never visited Egu.lt or similar portals and do not feel that they have lost out.
(Maybe because he hasn't visited, hasn't looked and doesn't know yet...)
But with the right mindset, Egu.lt can become more than just a platform for self-development and competence building. It can become your recreational and entertainment platform.
How?
Look, you don't have to study something related to your current job. Well, you're already working day in, day out, so what's next - MORE WORK?
Fui. Well, no.
It's better to take it easy! Consciously. As I mention "The Lazy Manifesto".
(See, I'm promoting my book in a review of a training platform I like. How clever I am. Ha, ha.)
...And to take time for SELF-pleasure as if it were a FUN. To learn what you never learned and you just think it's fun. For example play the guitar. Or prepare a fantastic salad. Or...
(Well, just go to Egu.lt and you'll find all the current courses. And more are being added every month.)
And when there's only maybe 3 % of content left on regular TV that you could get your news from (the kind where it's not just entertainment, but also news. Now even Disraveri Chianel has started to show turbo-tornadoes and mega-rickshaws), Egu.lt has almost 100 % of such content...
(And the difference between ~3 % and ~100 % is significant - at least 30.46 times.)
Maybe not everything, what is Egu.lt, will be new to you, so let's say the percentage of educational material is slightly lower. But even then, self-education as entertainment remains!
And what's more, Egu.lt courses are cheap too. While they would cost several hundred euros elsewhere, here you can get a 12-month VIP membership for just €119 (yes, less than €10 per month) and access to all the courses uploaded to date.
(I'm seriously thinking of giving them to my dad.)
When I started my Egu.lt adventure, I didn't think I would like it. But I did. And now I recommend it to you.
...Tessa, since I already have a 12-month VIP membership, I still have 9 months of adventure left! I am looking forward to renewing.
Oh, and you know what? Let's talk to the creators of Egu.lt!
3 questions interview with the author of Egu.lt
I'm talking directly to Augutis Kučinskas, the head of the Life University, who also develops training platforms Verslokursai.lt and Pedagogas.lt.
FIRST: Why Egu.lt? There are various training platforms on the internet: Coursera, Udemy, Udacity, Lynda... Why was Egu created?
The idea of Egu.lt actually started back in 2010, when there were no such projects (except Lynda, of course, which is probably the world's oldest distance learning project). There are several reasons why we decided to create Egu.lt:
- In 2010, we sold Klase.lt, the first Lithuanian social network, which had been developed for a long time, and I wanted to invest the money in my next IT idea.
- I thought then, and I still think now, that people still lack the knowledge and skills that would be useful in their lives. But for some reason, they do not get that knowledge in schools or universities. It is knowledge about health, nutrition, sport, psychology, communication, public speaking, parenting, personal effectiveness and so on.
- Most of the educational events take place in Vilnius. Good lecturers do not have the time to travel to other cities, let alone smaller towns, or it would be too expensive (travel, fees, etc.).
- Egu.lt also removes the language barrier, because not all Lithuanians find it easy to listen to lectures on foreign training portals in English or other languages.
SECOND: Oh, how very subtle! I think the reasons are serious! And how much time do you personally devote to self-education per week? And you probably watch mostly video courses?
Personally, I devote at least half an hour every day to self-development, but I use a variety of sources, not only Egu.lt (I often watch Lynda or Udemy trainings).
I do this not only for self-development, but also out of professional interest - I am learning about training technologies, because our goal is to make training effective - not only to boast about how much training we have, but most importantly to make sure that the people who are learning are getting real benefits from the training.
That's why we also ask our lecturers to prepare for the training according to our specific requirements.
THIRD: Interesting! And then tell me, which Egu.lt course do you personally like best? 🙂
It is difficult to single one out as there are many good and interesting topics and speakers. I can mention a few that I watched very recently and have already started to put into practice what I heard in the training. These are the trainings "4 productivity strategies" and "Public speaking. Where to start?". I've also heard a lot of good things about the training "Beginner's Guide to Running Regularly". I plan to review and start running in the near future.
There are certainly more excellent trainings, but in general, when it comes to distance learning, I personally like the ones that are clearly structured, with information presented in a focused way and with concrete examples. In general, training, whether distance or classroom-based, should give clear answers to your questions and influence you in a way that you not only know how to do, but do it.
The ideal teaching is the one that influences your life to a greater or lesser extent, that makes you change and grow. That is the best kind of teaching. And it doesn't matter where it is or in what format - Egu.lt or Lynda.com, in a hotel ballroom or a university lecture hall.
Thank you very much!
Well, here it is. I've spent 3 months on Egu.lt and I love it. How about you? Will you join? It costs nothing to create an account and you can do it right here!
Fucked up,
P. S. Extra... Click and download 3 FREE podcasts - interviews: 3 Lithuanian self-help teachers reveal how to learn effectively. Since you're interested in Egu.lt, I guess it's important for you to learn. These audio interviews will answer many of your questions.