You can find the time
Sat Jun 08, 2019 · 282 words

Read part 1 of this series.

Truth #2: You can find time

You might be thinking:

But Ray, there’s only so many hours in a day.

It’s so hard to fit in learning after work.

And handling the difficulty of learning along with fighting the stress of deadlines is a big issue, too.

I feel your pain. I feel it because I’m living it.

I’ve got about 5-6 hours between finishing up at work and sleep.

With eating, cleaning up, hanging out with my family, maybe taking an after-dinner stroll, getting my daughter washed up and ready for bed, and then reading to her before she goes down for the night… I’m left with around 2-3 hours (on a good day).

At this point, I’m ready to wind down my day and fitting in learning after all that is the last thing on my mind.

You know what is on my mind?

The stress of deadlines. Oh, and the latest problem at work is replaying in my mind, too.

So how did I switch gears?

I decided not to.

Forcing myself to push through learning when my energy is lowest is an unsustainable approach to learning. I’d have to work up the motivation and muster up the energy to learn.

To me, learning when I’m exhausted felt unproductive. Why not learn when I’m feeling refreshed?

I systematically rearranged my schedule so that those 2-3 hours are in the morning when I wake up. I invested a few minutes the night before to decide what I’d be learning in the morning.

Rather than using my lowest energy in an attempt to learn, I used my highest energy to learn.

Read about Truth #3


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