Recently someone said to me that they wished they could read more but that they couldn't make it fit in with their life.
The four principles:
To break down anything, follow these four principles:
- Work your way back from the end goal
- Identify the actions
- Estimate how long each action will take
- Commit to those actions
Work your way back
Take reading a book for example. Let’s say you’ve borrowed one from the library, it has a due date of two weeks. That’s the end goal. The actions identified are to read the pages within that book. You then figure out how many pages you need to read each night in order to make the deadline. The book has 259 pages – that works out to about 18 pages a day. You time yourself and find that 18 pages takes about 30 minutes. You’re committed now, it feels doable. So in your calendar you make an entry for the next two weeks that every night at 9:30pm you will read before sleeping. Except Thursday because you note that you’re favourite program is on that night, so you’ll have to read in the morning that day or make it an hour on Friday. Done! The book you never thought you’d have time to read, has been read!
Try this with anything that you feel you don’t have time for. Can’t seem to find time for a run? No time to declutter your pantry? No time to write a blog post? Or to research a new Internet provider?
How about no time for a morning routine? Reverse engineer it from when you need to be at work and identify the parts of the routine. How long will they take? Set your alarm for your new wake up time and commit for a week or two. Try it out. Experiment!
What’s something that you’ve been putting off for lack of time that you could apply this formula to?
Need some friendly support while you figure out your next move? Then get in contact.
Talk soon,
Christie