How to Earn PMP PDUs in Your Sleep

I often get questions from readers, contacts or newly certified members on how to earn PDUs before the expiration of their PMP lifecycle. Sometimes the impatient part of me gets irritated at the questions because I feel like PMI has done a great job in outlining the categories and steps to earning them.  So all the member has to do is read, select the applicable categories and go looking for them, which by the way are not far to find. A ton already exists on the PMI site. Anyway since the questions won't go away, I decided to come up the easiest way to earn PDUs without breaking a sweat. And what better way than to do it while sleeping...figuratively, so hence the title of my post.

There are 5 categories listed by PMI for fulfilling the Continued Certification Requirements (CCR):
Category A - Courses offered by PMI's R.E.Ps, chapters and communities
Category B - Continuing education
Category C- Self directed learning
Category D - Creating new project management knowledge
Category E- Volunteer service

How do you earn PDUs while sleeping?
Lullaby Podcasts and bedtime audio books on Project Management
There are loads of audio books or podcasts that you can listen to while you sleep...literally.  Well, during your sleep you better be able to take good mental notes because proof of your attendance or participation might be requested by PMI should your CCR report be audited. I personally subscribed to a service provider that has over 30 PDUs worth of podcasts for your listening and viewing pleasure all for free.  That's half of your requirements in a 3 year cycle fulfilled! Consider it a lullaby or counting sheep while you snooze.

Date night with PMI members
Use your monthly chapter dinner or lunch meetings to earn points. Consider it a date night to watch a chick flick with your significant other or taking the kids to watch Finding Nemo. You'll probably sleep through the entire movie so why not earn PDUs while at it. So an hour worth of PDUs spent at chapter meetings equals 12 PDUs in a year.

The Sleeping PM
You nod your head through boring meetings, sleep walk through presentations and then assign all the work to your team so you can sleep some more.  And the good news, you earn PDUs while rolling over in your desk and drooling. As a practicing PM, you can earn up to 15 PDUs per lifecycle provided you worked as a PM for the entire three years. How easy is that?

Check in coats at PMI Congress
You can volunteer to help check in coats for attendees at registered PMI events or perform any mind numbing job that you can do while sleeping.  If counting the number of name tags or paper clips of conference materials is your version of counting sheep, then you're in luck. More PDUs to report!  Also, there may be opportunities for you to man a desk or answer phone calls unsupervised. Hello? Sleeptime!

Scribble a rant piece
Remember that time when you dreamed of spewing expletives at your boss for giving you a project with unrealistic deadlines, limited resources and improperly defined scope. Well just turn those pleasant dreams into a rant piece for a PM article and you could be fulfilling Category D in your CCR. I know I did. I recently had the chance to articulate my fantasies for a UK based PM magazine and I earned PDUs while at it. Cool, right?

While coming up with the above list gave me the chuckles, I am by no means advocating that PMs sleep their way through earning their continued certification requirements...no pun intended. Hopefully, some of my readers will find these suggestions as easy as rolling over...lol