Personal development courses to benefit your work and home life

Modern careers are more skilled and varied than ever before. You’ll be taught specific skills during your education regardless of whether you study nursing, accounting or cookery.

But those courses don’t necessarily start with basic personal skills; you develop them personally over time. Personal skills, also known as soft skills, include teamwork, time management, and communication, and often they’re not tangible skills you can learn by reading a book. The best way to strengthen soft skills is by actively using them every day.

A personal development course will provide far-reaching benefits; the knowledge can be used at work and at home to give you an improved work-life balance. Organisational skills can be used to keep you on time when visiting home care clients while they can also help with managing your morning routines with kids and drop-offs.

So no matter where you feel like improving your own self, there’s always a course to help. Hello Leaders has picked out courses in three key areas to help you get started.

Discover your new digital proficiency

Understanding digital literacy has never been more critical, from the use of smartphones and social media to the plethora of computer programs needed at work. 

One of the leading courses on offer is available online through Future Learn in partnership with Deakin University. Digital Discovery is a 4-week program that only requires two hours of your time each week. It’s an introductory-level digital proficiency course perfect for adults who want to be more confident online.

Key learnings

Digital Discovery is all about building your digital skills and confidence. It will help you:

• Better navigate the internet to increase your skill set 
• Understand internet safety so you can maintain online privacy and protect yourself against scams
• Use a wide variety of social media platforms to interact and network with friends, family and communities
• Discover what programs and websites are available to support your health, finance and lifestyle management 

What sets it apart

You will have plenty of opportunities to reflect on the skills you learn and can put them into practice each week. Each class has been crafted by Tegan Miller, a PhD Candidate with the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University, and you will have accessible expert advice. It’s a great way to tackle key personal digital proficiency skills that can help with everyday life and work.

Improve your time-management

Keeping organised at work – and at home – is always tough. There are always unforeseen obstacles popping up, quick tasks that ultimately take forever, and the dreaded impact of procrastination. But by better understanding what strategies are available to help with your time management, you can stay organised and ahead of schedule. 

The PD Training Time Management Course is one option that can deliver easy solutions for relatable problems that will really help you get back on track if personal and professional organisation is a struggle.

Key learnings

This time management course is all about setting goals, both short-term and long-term. As a result, the course structure is set up to perfectly suit your needs, with key learnings such as:

• Understanding how Pareto’s Law – that 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes – can be used to improve time management
• How you can prioritise tasks based on your goals and remain focused
• What to do when an unexpected event occurs
• The best ways to manage and avoid procrastination
• The importance of delegating tasks
• How meetings can become more effective and time efficient
• The impact that different personality types have on organisation

What sets it apart

With a wide range of topics on offer – it’s broken down into 12 sections – you have the ability to choose specific topics ahead of time that best relates to your time-management woes. It means the course can be better tailored to suit your organisational goals.

Care for your mental health

Although it is not a traditional course, Therapy on Demand is an engaging, supportive and educational resource from This Way Up that is essential for anyone struggling with stress, anxiety, low mood or depression.

It will give you a range of psychological skills that can improve the way you think and feel. Through new behaviours, you can approach challenging situations from a different perspective, and hopefully improve your mental health.

Key learnings

Depending on what you’re looking for, you can find support and information on:

• Positive steps to help calm your emotions in high-stress situations
• Strategies to manage anxiety and depression
• Effective ways to express yourself when experiencing high stress
• Tips on mindfulness to improve stress and well-being
• Solutions to insomnia and difficulties in sleeping
• The best ways for you to support a loved one or colleague

What sets it apart

Therapy on Demand offers tips and tools for a wide variety of mental health concerns and the information you seek and use could be different from the next person. For example, there are resources available for obsessive-compulsive disorder and social anxiety, which may not impact you but could be a daily struggle for a colleague.

The ease at which you can access any number of resources will help anyone in the care sector struggling with mental health.

Be the best version of yourself

Ultimately, everyone wants to develop personally and professionally to be their best. Soft skills like time management, organisation, digital literacy and just looking after your own mental health are undeniably beneficial. So there’s no bad time to look into personal growth or development.