It’s (way) under ten minutes to read this. Why? Because ten minutes is my new magic number. Not exactly a resolution (but in that family of making better choices) I’ve decided to dedicate 10 minutes each day to two things I want to make progress on. One is this, the other is my photography. Both tend to slip off the to do list because I make them bigger and bigger in my head until It feels like I might need months or years (not minutes) to make the progress I want.
I’ve been reading all sorts of excellent books on habits and goals and effectiveness, and it became really clear that I have goals, that they are clear, and I am my own worst enemy. In waiting for that perfect block of time where i could make amazing progress and “flow”, I successfully mastered ignoring all sorts of small opportunities. For me 10 minutes is nothing. I have ten minutes available all the dang time and I usually fritter it away because in my head it’s not enough time to do anything useful with. So all I have to do is shift how I use two little bits of time a day.
It’s also worth noting that my two ten minute tasks are vague enough that how I use those ten minutes can be really varied – which I hope will keep the excuses at bay. For photography I’m working through an online photo editing class, but today I organized and renamed some pics from Christmas while my daughter brushed her teeth and washed her face before bed. The draft of this post was written in an email to myself in 10 minutes, another day the ten minutes was searching for an out of print book I wanted to read for another post (I found it).
LIVE: If you start with the assumption that you have just 10 minutes a day to commit to something important to you, then it turns out you just found more than 60 bonus hours this year for that something. Who knew I had so much free time?