I was unhappy with how my days went. I always thought I can do so much more. But I didn’t know how to.
Then I got an idea. I called it the productivity challenge. I had to stop all my social media activity and digital entertainment until each evening. I also had to work in Pomodoros while never taking a break longer than 15 minutes.
This did sound impossible to me. Nevertheless, I gave it a shot and my day went well! I tried it the next day too, but couldn’t keep it up for any more days. I knew I was on to something. But it was still a work in progress.
Then I found out how Dr. Jordan Peterson would lock himself up for 3 hours every night to finish his book. Stephen Pressfield does something similar every morning. Neil Gaiman does this. Stephen King writes 6 pages everyday no matter what.
This lit up an idea in me. I couldn’t do it for a whole day, but I could do it for 3 hours. That’s where my idea of 3 sacred hours came for. For the last 12 days I have put in 3 hours every single day, except for one minor hiccup.
But, the pull of digital entertainment is always there. It’s easy to do my 3 hours and then waste my whole day on social media, YouTube or some streaming service.
That’s when another idea struck me. There’s something I always wanted to do. That is learning about new things from masters of that craft. I just love it when someone talks about something that she is very passionate in.
So, I decided to replace digital entertainment with books and lectures from different Universities. I guess all of you know that Stanford, MIT, Yale and Harvard have their own YouTube channels where they upload full lectures on numerous subjects. Then there’s the Joe Rogan Experience, The Origins Podcast, The Artificial Intelligence Podcast, The Portal and many other podcasts where I get to see people talk about their views and their passion.
The lure of social media, random YouTube videos and streaming services are still there. It’s a conscious choice that I have to make every day to read a book, watch a lecture or listen to a podcast instead.
But at the end of the day, this is what makes me happy. I urge you to try this for a day and see how it goes. You can start with this course about ‘Death’ (!) by Shelly Kagan that I’m watching right now.
RaihanRiad 