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I feel like I am running out of time, after having a long weekend. I know that the main reason is that I did not spend time to write this letter when I have a long weekend. Not smart. Is there a way to make a day longer? Definitely. I feel double as productive when I wake up at 5am (when I don’t need to work). If I do so on a work day, I have 2 hours in the morning to myself. That does not feel like a lot. If I finish dinner and doing dishes at 8:30pm, I still have half an hour for side project (like writing this letter, creative writing, etc). I don’t have much time on weekdays. The only time left is lunch time during work, commute time and the weekend.
Multitasking
Believe it or not, I have been multitasking in the morning. For instance, I would get ready while I boil water in the kettle and do housework that last less than 5 minutes.
Maybe I have been using habit stacking James Clear introduced. He pointed out that:
Habit stacking works best when the cue is highly specific and immediately actionable. Many people select cues that are too vague. I made this mistake myself. When I wanted to start a push-up habit, my habit stack was, “When I take a break for lunch, I will do ten push-ups.” At first glance, this sounded reasonable. But soon, I realized the trigger was unclear. Would I do my push-ups before I ate lunch? After I ate lunch? Where would I do them? After a few inconsistent days, I changed my habit stack to: “When I close my laptop for lunch, I will do ten push-ups next to my desk.
In this case, I can start to include habit stacks such as:
Write during commute time (It doesn’t matter if it is stories, this letter or other things)
Learn something new during lunch time (Watching Amanda Natividad and Christina Garnett talk about fiction and marketing made my day)
Christina Garnett used time blocking to get things done. GTD system works for some people too. Khe Hy integrated GTD in Notion.
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Delightful collaboration - Zara x Earth Hour
The way Zara invites people to save the planet is delightful. Finding ways to spend the hour in the dark next year? Look no further.
How CEOs Manage Time
Michael E. Porter and Nitin Nohria launched a study to track how CEOs manage their time. The fact that the CEOs in the study spent 62.5 hours to work every week reflects that we can learn something from them. At least we can spend 22.5 hours after work to do side projects if we want to. My only motive here is to find time for side projects and stay sane at the same time.