Did you know that a single two-second distraction can cost you 15 minutes of your day? When your concentration is interrupted, it takes up to 15 minutes to get your focus back.
Often one of the biggest road blocks to our personal growth is that we feel we can’t take on a new project until we have vast amounts of free time. The reality is that we will probably never have a couple hours of free time each day.
However, if we can set aside just 15 minutes each day to dedicate to doing something we’ve been putting off for a better period of our life, these small investments will add up and go a long ways toward achieving our goals.
For example if you want to learn a foreign language, practice a neglected musical instrument, read through the works of Shakespeare, or any number of enriching activities you probably don’t feel you have enough time to start. Most likely you don’t have enough time to fully invest yourself in any of those activities. However, if you can dedicated a small amount of time on a consistent basis you will grow–maybe not as fast as you’d like, but some progress is better than no progress.
The trick is to set aside time and keep it allocated for your endeavor. If you constantly cannibalize that small period of time you’ve set aside for your personal growth you won’t make the desired progress. If you can keep that period each day dedicated to the desired activity you will be amazed at how much you can accomplish in a year just 15 minutes at a time.
Originally published on December 4, 2006.
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I often find myself thinking “I’ll start that after finals” or “I’ll work on it after marching band is over.” I think you bring up a very good point. Life is always moving, and so you have to learn to utilize time management. You can’t just throw yourself into something all the time every time. You have to take some things bit by bit. Very nice post!
Correct.
When we see the potential of consistent small actions, we create the opportunity to change the world in big ways.
I started to Master this approach late in college. I feel like the assumed approach is to knock the project or task out in one big time block, you know, cram! Cramming will only take you so far. Thanks for the tips! :) 15 min spurts is effective and before you know it, you’ve covered tons of ground.