Time Units

Today I wanted to talk to you about the concept that life is not a marathon. It is in fact a series of short sprints.

One thing that I learned having work with people who perform for very long periods of time, first of all they know how to splice their time. If you don't know what I am talking about, please have a look at the newsletter from the month before.

Once they learn how to splice their time, what they do is, they portion a day up into small units of time either 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 20 minutes. And based on these small chunks they are able to perform at their peak and then click off to get into what we called Free Time.

In fact, the difference between professional tennis players and amateur tennis players is that professional tennis players are able to lower their heart rate by as much as 20 beats per minute after they hit their winning serve and they are back at the base line ready for the next shot. During that time they are able to completely click into free time and literally switch off to such a level that their pulse rate drops by up to 20 bits per minute.

So what this means for us though, is we need to operate in minutes of time. If you get 5 days task to do, don't look at it like a 5 day task, look it as series of 20 minute tasks you have to manage back to back.

Quite often people ask me how I can run trainings for 6-7 weeks in a row without taking a break. It’s because I am not doing a 7 week training or series of 3 day trainings. I am doing series of 10 -20 min content pieces. Once I deliver a content piece I click off into free time. I take break and I relax and then when I am ready to perform again I click back in and I am in performance mode.

So instead of looking a day as an 8 hour day, start looking it as 20 minute or 10 minute chunks. If you do this you realize that life is a series of short and effective sprints at a very high level. You’ll find you get less stress at work, have lot more fun and ultimately get things done more rapidly.

This is because you are not overwhelmed by the duration of the task. You are really engaged in the 10 - 20 minutes of work you actually have to do. Hope this been beneficial.

Until we meet again, smile often, live your love and do whatever it takes to be our own best friend.

The Gift: The E-Myth Revisited

In this book Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business.