No BS guide on how to find more time
Recommended to overly ambitious procrastinators
Today I have something special for you! My friend Alex Stasenko, not only works in gamedev, but he also shares his experience and news in his newsletter Gamedev Relay! (sharing news in a newsletter… why didn’t I ever think of that?). But this time, we’re doing a cross-post, which means mine is on his 😉
Enjoy!
Hello friends,
Have you ever been in a situation when you wanted to master a new skill, learn something new or improve your knowledge of something you already know, but you just don’t have the time?
If you are an overly ambitious procrastinator (like me), I hope that after reading this article you’ll be inspired enough to pick your huge goals from the top of the shelf, make small changes to your daily routine and start achieving them.
Let’s dig in!
Meet the Adversary
The ability to make decisions is one of the most important and powerful tools that we have as human beings. But what I haven’t realized till recently is that we usually are making 2 types of decisions:
The subconscious decisions (which take roughly 80% of our time)
And the continuous decisions
For example, we don’t make a conscious decision every day in the morning that we need to eat, put on clothes and go to work. We don’t decide to do it every day. But if we want to start a business, take a day off work to help a friend move or learn a new language, suddenly, everything changes. Our brain starts analyzing the pros and cons of each situation and we act upon whatever conclusion we arrive at.
Here’s another example. Have you ever found yourself in a situation when you’ve spent at least an hour scrolling YouTube videos? Or Instagram, TikTok, shorts, X etc. I bet that you haven’t made a conscious decision to spend that hour, and yet here we are. What’s worse (and now I’m talking mostly about myself) is that after this hour has passed, you are thinking about how guilty you are for not putting this time to better use. Of course, this guilt tends to pass and we arrive at the same destination over and over again, possibly even on the same day.
And this is our great adversary on this journey.
The ability to continuously catch yourself during the points of decision-making is something that we all need to develop to find more time in our already busy lives.
Power of Small Steps
What I’ve always heard, but just recently came to truly realize is that the thing that stands between us and achieving our most ambitious goals has far less to do with whether or not we have the skills / talent / mindset to do it. And far more to do with our problem-solving and decision-making ability.
Each of us is facing millions of decisions every single day, even small steps can compound into huge leaps toward our dreams.
There are so many motivational speakers, productivity gurus and coaches that will tell you the same thing. Why do we clearly understand that to achieve a good physique or master a musical instrument we need to perform those activities regularly but fall short when people talk about learning something? The premise is and always will be the same.
It doesn’t matter how long you spent today on something. What matters is how long you spend on it regularly.
What is extremely important is that we all have full control of our day-to-day lives and we can spend as little as 5 minutes on something, but if we spend those 5 minutes each day over a long period, we will be able to achieve all of our goals and beyond.
After I realized that, my life will (probably) never be the same again.
Active Participation
What’s great is that the types of steps that I’m about to show you can easily be achievable by anyone who’s reading this article.
Every one of us at any given moment can choose to stop being a spectator with our decisions and start actively participating in the process.
Let me prove it to you with my own example.
As some of you may know, I love playing video games. I used to spend most of my days playing them if I was not doing something with my girlfriend or working or doing chores. My typical day always used to look like this:
I wake up around 4-5 AM depending on the day
I spend around an hour drinking coffee and either playing a video game or watching random YouTube videos (because I want to fully wake up)
I go to the gym for about 1-1.5 hours, hit the shower and get ready for work
While I’m having breakfast, I usually watch something like Netflix or YouTube (that’s another hour or so)
If I’m going to the office, I have around 2 hours of commute, which I spend watching a movie
Then it’s 8 hours workday
Throughout the day I spend around an hour browsing social media or YouTube whenever I need a small break
On my way back from work, I watch another movie or listen to music
I’m tired from work, so I spend an evening watching a series with my partner or playing some more video games (around 2-3 hours)
Sleep
During weekends, I usually spend around 8 hours a day (probably more) playing games or watching movies
Do you see where I’m going with this?
The time is not the problem. The problem is that I used to take a back seat on all these small decisions and subconsciously fall back to the path of least resistance.
Really think about it
Just as I did, it take a lot of efforts to really break down your day into small pieces and be honest with yourself.
Now, I’m not saying that you need to cut out all the social media and delete them from your phone, cancel your Netflix subscription or sell your PC / PlayStation. I definitely won’t do that (maybe not ever).
Think about what you would have done if time wasn’t an issue.
I want you to spend some time and really think about your typical day. A good idea is also to document it (if you have the time).
Open a spreadsheet and fill out one 24h cycle with your activities. Whenever you are about to switch or start doing something new, put a small note with a timestamp.
Again, I can’t stress enough how crucial it is to be honest with yourself about it. After all, you are doing it for yourself, right?
Once you are done with that, think about this day.
Is there anything you’d like to change? What? How?
Was there a time that you think might be better spent on something else?
Would you be willing to make a small change and replace one slot with something else?
These are the questions I’ve asked myself a couple of months ago.
I made a Small Change
I always wanted to read more books. So, looking at my day I found that I have about 4 hours I spend commuting at least twice a week. That’s 8 hours a week. Almost 40 hours a month. 480 hours a year. That’s 20 full days 🤯
So, I made a small change and instead of rewatching a movie or a series, I bought a book.
So far I’ve read about 5 books that were sitting on my “Book List” for about 5 years. I understand that it’s nothing to brag about, but for a person who usually ends up with 0 books at the end of each year, for me it’s already a huge accomplishment.
I made another Small Change
I always wanted a side hustle. So, l found that I usually spend around 5-6 hours each day either playing games or watching movies. That’s around 25 hours per week. 112 hours per month. Around 1300 hours per year. That’s 56 full days 🤯
So, I made a small change and instead of playing a game in the morning or evening and browsing social media during my breaks, I started this blog. Whenever I’m not writing, I’m either looking for topics to write about, listening to podcasts/videos of successful newsletter businesses, talking to other creators in the field or applying some of the lessons I’ve learned from there.
So far I’ve been consistently posting around 3 times a week for a month, I have more than 50 different articles on my content calendar across 6 different topics and the list is still growing, I’ve redesigned this blog twice 😅 and I’m slowly growing on other platforms.
Honestly, this journey has been one of the most rewarding (and scary) experiences in my life and can’t wait to see what’s going to happen with it in a couple of years.
Don’t think of it like that
What I came to understand, is that it’s not about this big ambitious goal that you set yourself. It’s not even about the outcome.
It’s about all the compound tasks that you need to do in order to get to where you want to be.
If your goal is to climb a mountain, the key decision is not about climbing a peak. It’s about making the first step toward it. And then the next one. And the next. It’s about the series of small steps that bring you to that mountain.
So, my advice is to take those big ambitious goals of yours and break them into a list of small and more manageable tasks that won’t require more than 5-10 minutes of your time.
But by doing those tasks you are slowly getting to where you want to be. Once you do the first step, you will make the second one. And then the third one and the fourth. This is what sets you on your way to success.
Do something for 5-10 minutes. And then do something else. Watch something, play something or listen to something. It doesn’t matter, as long as you come back to it. Not necessarily to the same thing. Just to another point on your to-do list that you feel like doing.
Let’s sum it up
I know that I don’t have any exceptional accomplishments just yet, but I can tell you this. I’m just a regular person, like you. I’ve never thought that I would be able to achieve any of these goals before I retire. In fact, I was planning to start all of it once I retired.
But just by thinking about my day and consciously making decisions to make small changes, I’ve completely changed how my life looks.
Don’t get me wrong, I still play video games, watch movies and procrastinate regularly. But now I continuously make these decisions and don’t let my routine control me.
That means that any of you can find these small chunks of time throughout your day and do small chunks of your huge ambitious goals. By doing these things consistently over a long period, you are dramatically increasing your odds of success.
By making small changes, you are inviting huge improvements to your life.
 | A guest post by
|