Matt Swanson’s post on I Don’t Have Time is a great pairing to the mental roadblocks you put in your path to build “career capital” (term borrowed from So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport, you should really read it).
I want to add onto Matt’s thoughts and share some of the things that I have done to make the time for deliberate practice.
Starting things
- For a week, I started waking up at 5AM
I was really productive during that time, but just didn’t keep with it
- I started using Swift Player for iOS, HTML5 Video for YouTube in Chrome, and 3X speed in Downcast for podcasts to reduce the time it took for me to consume educational / inspirational content
- I bring a mini project to work on at my local OpenHack
- I work on side projects at the same time and where my wife works on hers
Stopping things
- I have put a pause on most of my Hulu+ and Netflix viewing (made easier since it is the summer time and few new shows are on)
- I have reduced the number of movies I watch in theatres, and even watched Wreck-It Ralph at 1.5x with VLC
- I have stopped playing Xbox 360
These are just some of the things that I have done to make time for deliberate practice. They work for me.