Hola.
The concept of doing something so that it means no extra time spent is one that I dearly love.
“No Extra Time” = NET
It just basically means squeezing short, repetitive tasks into moments when you would otherwise be idling or doing something else anyway, so that it doesn’t disturb the main activity.
Recently I’ve been practicing NET during my morning walks by shooting welcome videos to anyone who buys any one of my courses.
And it is truly a great way to do something fun and hopefully a little bit delightful while still taking those steps. Although I do admit I occasionally treat myself and sit down a bit, I’m still getting my morning walk and getting stuff done
But oh boy, when I manage to skip a few days, starting the first video is very painful because there are quite a few to go.
(By the way I’m not saying this to brag about course sales and there is a real lesson here.)
“Small actions every day” is really the big catch for NET to even work.
Coincidentally just a couple of days ago, I was re-listening to a podcast by the author of “The 12 Levers:The Complete Psychological Toolkit for Improving Your Life,” where he was basically explaining the real-life psychological phenomena that underpin hundreds and hundreds of different self-improvement books
Self-improvement books are great. In many cases they are just better-packaged psychology, with some creative liberties taken because the academic version of psychology is full of buts and what-ifs… doesn’t really make for fun and/or inspirational reading in most cases.
Now anyway, I’ll spare you hours of listening or reading in this case. The two most powerful ways they found in the book are:
1. Looking at your own past, figuring out what worked for you in the past, and doing that.
2. Just having a super visible physical reminder to do something small.
Self-awareness. And doing something small. Then have a post-it note somewhere so that you can see what you’re supposed to do daily (aka a Prompt in the B=MAP equation IYKYK).
Sounds awfully simple, doesn’t it?
The only real problemo standing between unlocking a lot of work in the long run by doing something small every day with zero new time required is the belief that it can work.
Beliefs are annoying that way.
Let your morning walk be your prompt.
And do something useful during the walk.
“But I have to sit down to write I can’t do”… look, stop. Instead of starting your internal dialogue with “I can’t,” just ask, “How can I?”
Open NotebookLM, dump your literature as sources, ask a couple of interesting questions to find more sources into the mix, and have it create a 55-minute podcast for you. Listen to that tomorrow morning on your walk. I
can guarantee, I’ll bet a kidney, that you’ll come up with a bunch of amazing, creative, and diverse ideas how you can make that paper (or proposal) a mile better.
No extra time. But a very good morning walk. And a mountain of progress.
Cheers,
Simo “walk it out” Hosio