I love soup! I love making home-made soup and I enjoy eating it even more. I also get great pleasure from making a big batch, freezing it in portion-sized bags and passing them on to my daughters to take into work.

However, as an encore careerist I know how important it is to keep abreast of learning, and while making soup the other day, I reflected on how easy it is to multi-task and stay ahead of the curve, provided you have the correct tools.

I started my working life when a technological leap meant moving from a rotary dial telephone to the push-button phone, which was widely introduced in the UK in 1975. A telegram was a slip of paper containing a short message, delivered by hand, and reserved for topics of a serious nature, particularly births, marriages and deaths.

Today online messaging tools have transformed the way we work, and I keep in touch with my business partner, Graham, using Telegram Messenger, “a new era of messaging”. This new technology only requires a laptop or smartphone, and messages are transmitted instantaneously, securely and can even self-destruct.

Recently, with Telegram running in the background, we sat down in our respective homes to watch a webinar from Enterprise Nation – the UK’s most active small business community.

Enterprise Nation webinars allow you to take screenshots of each slide, so I collected these on my desktop and then inserted them all in a Word document. My go-to-tool for creating notes is a mindmap to which I can add hyperlinks, notes, text and images. My preferred software is Mindjet. I was therefore able to create a comprehensive overview and aide memoire of the webinar. Graham and I were also able to make running comments on the webinar over Telegram and when it was finished, to reflect on the learning experience and create action points. Job done!

But back to my soup. Whilst making this week’s batch of leek, onion and potato, courtesy of the wonderful Delia Smith, I was also listening to a podcast by problogger. Graham prefers to do his listening in the car, and I have friends and colleagues who listen while running, at the gym, or commuting by public transport.

As a small business leader, you are busy, with many demands on your time. But in today’s fast-paced environment it is critical that you keep up with current trends and find ways to maximise your time and boost your productivity. The links above may have given you some ideas on how you can integrate learning into your own schedule. Soup is optional, but if you are feeding your mind, you might as well feed your body at the same time!