In this issue, I’d like to lay out an experiment that I’m trying to run with my daily life. There are a lot of things I’d like to accomplish before I graduate next year, but I’m running into the fundamental limit we all have in a day: 24 hours.
Here’s what I’m trying out so that I can do what I want to do:
What failed in the past
In the past, I used to block out my entire day. I had a theoretical understanding of what I was supposed to be doing at each hour. Here’s what my calendar looked like:
On my past attempts, I would just figure this out and just do it. And I would be able to commit to this overly optimistic schedule for maybe.. half a day. In the past, I always forgot to account for how tired I was, sudden events, and not being able to properly predict how long things would take.
When I inevitably failed, I would drop this scheme and just try to wing it. This worked when I only had 1-2 responsibilities, but now I have many more things I want to do.
I mention this because there’s a key benefit to doing this type of blocking: you have a plan for how to spend the day.
When there’s a lot of things to juggle, it’s good to have a dedicated time to work on it. Otherwise, it’s very likely that you won’t have time for it.
Adapting to my obsessive nature
I have a curse. But it’s also kind of a blessing. When I work on something and I get into the flow, I can work for hours. When I didn’t have a significant other, I would frequently forget to eat at appropriate times.
This quality of mine is good for research and editing. But it’s awful for juggling multiple projects. The number one reason that tasks stay on my to-do list is that I obsess over one of my tasks, and I completely neglect the others. Then comes the wave of guilt and urge to give up, and finally I sleep. Rinse and repeat.
But I’m spurred by the fact that I graduate in a year (which is insane to me), and I feel the dire need to make myself as competitive as possible for a job and put the YouTube channel in a good spot.
On top of research and YouTube, I need to fit in time to learn the craft of course-making and do some language learning. For me, these are things that need to be done, not just things I can say to flex.
After much brainstorming, I think I found a solution to my toxic trait:
A stopwatch. Not a timer.
In the past, I used to assign an hour to myself to some task. When the hour ended, I forced myself to switch tasks, no matter if I was in flow or not.
This was very frustrating, so I thought to flip it on its head. Rather than watch a countdown and assign a maximum amount of time for a task, I decided to set a minimum time (30 minutes). Crucially, I don’t have to stop at 30 minutes. I can keep going if I’m feeling it. But what I’ve found is that that knowing I’ve passed the threshold helps me stop and switch projects when I get out of that flow. Based on my past, it’s rare that I can maintain this state for more than 1-1.5 hours. The timer reminds me that I should mind finding a good place to stop.
On the other hand, if I’m really having trouble with a project, I can just stop it after 30 minutes. This helps avoid guilt since I could tell myself that I had done something meaningful for that project.
Other adaptations
The stopwatch is the most recent in iterations I’ve made for this habit of mine, so it’s the focus here. There are other adaptations I’ve made as my life or needs have changed, so I’ll just list them here for those interested:
Implementing a “catch-all” block at the end of the day to help me make up for tasks that I didn’t do
Limiting my to-do list. With 4 1-hour blocks, I try to keep my to-do list to around this size. Theoretically, I can do 8 30-minute tasks, but for research, I need time to get into things.
No scheduling on weekends. I’m human and I need to touch grass once in a while.
I hope this has been helpful if you find yourself in a similar situation to mine. In my opinion, a useful habit that works for you will be born from your own personal circumstances. Try stuff out, remove what doesn’t work, and just keep adapting until it’s effortless.
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week.
Christian
Current State of The Channel
😵💫 What am I working on right now?
Almost done with a video for tips on learning statistics, should be up next week! That’s my deadline at least…
🧐 What am I enjoying right now?
Book — I hit Spotify’s limit for listening to audiobooks last week, so… I have to go back to listening to my large collection of audiobooks. I was reading Blood, Sweat, and Pixels on Netflix, but now I’m re-listening to Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You to assuage my paranoia about the job market.
Thing — I’m losing weight right now, so my life is joyless as I’m shedding the poundage.
📺 What are my recent videos?
Edutainment — The better way to do statistics: a video explaining how Bayes’ Theorem is used in statistics. Bayesian statistics are not the usual in coursework, so lots of students don’t get exposed to these ideas.
Explainer — An easier way to do sample size calculations: a video showing how to use Monte Carlo simulation to do a sample size calculation. The code I used for this video can be found in this Github repo.
📦 My other stuff
I personally wrote guided solutions to problems from the first chapter of Andrew Gelman’s Bayesian Data Analysis. I wrote this guide to give advanced self-learners the insight to develop their statistical problem solving and implement some of these solutions in R.
Heads up! Some of the links on my issues are affiliate links, so I may get a small amount of money if you choose to buy something from these links. I only put links for stuff I actually use and consume.