The Break School

Transcript of the Snippet

Hello and Welcome 

I’m Sanjay Khandelwal and this is The Break School, a self learning podcast to enable you to do what you love, everyday!

This is the second TBS snippet on consistency. You can listen to this directly or start with our 1st Snippet here

In the 1st snippet, I discussed the primary reason for inconsistency – Our dependence on certain emotions, i.e. most of us take action when we feel great, or miserable, or jealous or inspired. The key is, to stop depending on these emotions (because you cant get rid of them, of course) and do what you love doing, everyday, no matter what.

In this episode and the next two, I’ll share 3 simple, yet powerful methods, that have helped me get consistent with my podcast while still having a day job. I was initially planning to share all 3 in the same snippet but I’ll need at least 5 minutes for each one of them, so I have broken them down into 3 short snippets.

So here you go, 

Method 1 – Time Blocking

It’s a fairly simple idea. You block a chunk of time in your calendar to do something that matters the most. Simple? So, what makes this simple idea so powerful?

Let me give you some context. I came across the idea of time blocking in the book The One Thing by Garry Keller. It’s a brilliant book and I highly recommend it. The basic premise of the book is, multi tasking is a myth, which I completely agree. To achieve extraordinary results you need to identify the one thing that matters the most to you and block a chunk of time, could be an hour, 2 hours, 4 hours and work on your one thing. 

In our case, our goal is to get better at what we love doing or learn something completely new. Such pursuits take time but most of us either have day job or college or something going on and we don’t have all the time in the world. This where time time blocking helps. You may not have all the time in the world but you can certainly block small chunks of time everyday, say 6 am to 7 am in the morning everyday to work on your break project. In my case, On the weekdays, I have blocked 7 am to 10 am to work on my podcasts. On the weekends, my Saturday is completely blocked for the podcast since I need to release the episode by Saturday night or Sunday morning. 

What makes time blocking powerful, is it removes my dependency on external factors like weather or inspiration. When I know I have to work on my podcast between 7 to 10 in the morning, I do it even if at 7 o’clock I have no clue what I should be working on. You will experience some resistance in the beginning but over time you mind will make peace with it. If you have started your 30 challenge that I mentioned in the last snippet, you would agree by now that our brains have this uncanny ability to get into the focus mode when you work on something uninterrupted for 15 minutes.

So find your time block, could be one hour or four hours, could be in the morning or evening. While you start with time blocking, just keep in mind three things about time blocking 

1. Try to block at least an hour – As I said our brains need a little time to get into a focus mode, it is generally 10 to 15 minutes for an average person. Once you get into this zone, have at least 45 minutes to make the best of it. If you absolutely cannot block one hour a day, then by all means go with 30 minutes or 45 minutes, but I strongly recommend, increase this to 1 hour and more by cutting down on things like Facebook, Netflix or binge watching YouTube videos that you don’t matter much. 

2. If your Time Block is more than an hour, then take short breaks every 30 or 45 minutes. Focusing out is as important as Focusing in. If you would like to read more about this then check out Spaced Learning Process, Pomodoro Technique and the chapter Searching for the Zone in the book The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin.

3. Protect your Time Block from distractions – My biggest distraction is my phone. I work on my podcast on the morning between 7 to 10 am because that’s when I don’t get calls. I generally use my phone when I leave home for work. On the weekends when I’m researching on my guest or doing something that requires focus, I either switch off my phone or put it on flight mode for 5 to 6 hours at a stretch. I inform people, if they really need to reach me they can drop me a mail. I have deactivated notification of all apps on my phone other than Gmail and my bank app. I strongly recommend you go the setting section of your phone, go to notification and switch off notifications of all apps that you don’t want to check regularly. Lastly, I have unsubscribed from all the emails that I do not read regularly. Apps like twitter, linked and many blogs that you once subscribed keep sending you mails. Just go to the bottom of the mail and hit unsubscribe button. There are a lot of things that I would like to talk about on reducing distraction but that will require another snippets in itself and that’s for an another day. For now, just understand that being consistent isn’t just about doing what you love regularly but also about removing anything that takes away even one second of your attention

To summarise

Fix a time block, every day to do what you love or learn what you really want to learn. When your time block arrives, No matter what, Act. Within 15 minutes you will get into the zone.

Keep 3 things in mind about time block

1. As far as possible keep your time block at least one hour long

2. If you time block is greater than one hour make sure you take breaks every 30 minutes or 45 minutes

3. Protect your time block from distraction – preferably, have it early in the morning and keep your noise making devices such as phones in switch off mode. It is also good practise to switch of notifications of apps, unsubscribe from email news letters that you don’t read and not pickup phone if its not very urgent. 

Do this for 30 days and let me know about your experiences. I would love to hear what worked for you and what did not. 

If you would like to receive future episodes and snippets from the break school, then do subscribe to The Break School on Spotify, Castbox, Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. 

I’ll see you next week again, with another snippet on consistency and story of another Pathbreaker doing what she loves. 

Stay tuned. Good Luck doing what you love, Everyday! Consistent