Time. We’ve all got none of it apparently. We put off so much of what we want to do, so many of our dreams, so much of what we wish to learn, all because we don’t see how to fit it into a week already filled to the brim. As elusive as time is, it’s damn important to find it.
I find time every day to study and practice skills. It wasn’t always this way though. That’s why I’m preaching on the internet about the value of committing to a daily study and practice regime – I know first-hand what a brilliant thing it is to keep up. Let me try and convince you.
Why?
Why, when our days are already jampacked, should anyone commit to studying every single day? First thing in the morning on top of that? Consider these:
- You’re guaranteed to achieve something within the first hour of the day. No day is a waste ever.
- Makes sure you actually do study and improve yourself. Committing to study after a day of work can be hard – you have to fight the desire to simply lay back and rest, while putting the distractions of the day to one side.
- Creates structure for both your study routine and sets a foundation for the rest of the day.
- Nerd alert – I personally just love learning and feel it’s essential for my own growth.
But lets look in a bit more detail at some factors.
There’s a lot to learn out there.
School and university are great and all, but I think we’re all aware they teach us far from everything. It wouldn’t be possible, after all. If Socrates professed to knowing nothing at all, we non-philosophical-master folk haven’t got a monkey’s chance.
Really, this is a blessing. There is absolutely zero chance of ever running out of things to be interested in, skills to develop, ways to enrich life. From my perspective it would be madness not to have a good go at making a dent in that indispensable amalgamation of amazing things to know and do.
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It takes commitment to reach unrealised personal goals.
Flick through this website and it should become quickly clear that languages are a big part of my life. Indeed, the two things I work on most consistently are languages and music.
Language learning doesn’t have to be the uphill struggle it is often made out to be. The learning process does however need to be consistent and regular. If you set out an hour before you even get to work, then you’re guaranteed to get your practice in.
Of course, that works for anything. Two years ago I practiced guitar for 40 minutes every morning before hopping on the bike and heading into work. Just think for a second – if you put an hour into something you really cared about at the very start of each day, how much more fulfilling would every day be?
I currently study around an hour of Japanese before work, sometimes adding 30 minutes of finance or more Japanese study in afterwards. This has been my Japanese study routine for three years now – just the one hour – and I’m about ready to take the second highest level standard Japanese exam (JLPT N2). One hour a day adds up (note I also lived in Japan for 8 months during that span of three years -which helped considerably).
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You can take ownership of the skills you were never taught.
I hear people complain that schools should teach this or that instead of ‘useless subjects’. At least in the UK where I went to school, many lament the lack of financial education, job market skills, general life admin – and so on.
Well, what are you doing about that?
UK education does give the base for you to work this kind of thing out. From working in international education and spending my working hours researching education systems around the world, I know plenty other countries do too.
I’ll use my study of finance as an example. School didn’t teach me about managing finances. Luckily it did teach me maths, science, and history. Those act as an excellent base for learning finance. After a few weeks reading about finance and testing myself with real financial documents I had addressed that ‘shortfall’ of the school system.
Honestly, the real shortfall of the system is the failure to point out that after school you are equipped to work out these skills yourself if you so choose to. I may get criticised for this as elitist thinking, but in general simply requiring more initiative from a person does wonders for their ability.
The reality is you do not have to rely on others to teach you. The world is full of amazing learning gadgets – like… books. The internet meanwhile provides the largest collection of freely available information humanity has ever seen. You do have resources. You can learn practically anything.
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You almost certainly have wanted to master something you currently cannot do.
“I really wish I could do [insert cool skill here]”. That’s one common phrase right there. Have you said it before? Awesome. Best time to start is now.
Now, I know there are limitations. Starting skiing tomorrow may be a little on the tricky side if you live in Riyadh. Blurting out your first operatic notes this coming morning could result in a family feud and angry neighbours.
But the principle still holds. If you want to learn something you should get started as close to immediately as possible. That first step is always the hardest – but it can be so, so, so rewarding.
Let me give you a personal example from earlier this year. I have practiced music every day for years (and still do), dreaming of performing in front of people. The key problem was that I was terrified of getting on stage. This year (noting covid is currently close to non-existent where I live), I went to an open mic…
…and chickened out. It was damn hard to pull up the courage I needed.
Next week, I came back ready and got on that stage. Sweating profusely from stage fright, I fumbled through a few songs…and did it.
Now playing on stage is the key part of my life I always wanted it to be. I just had to get over that utter bastard of a first step. I can say with utmost certainty that my life is better for getting over that initial challenge. Do it, my friends – take the first and hardest step.
Hopefully there were some convincing reasons above for why you should consider studying every day. We are however not done here…
How?
How about how? Didn’t this article start by lamenting how little time we have?
The two key things you need are drive and indeed that elusive resource of time. Get those key points, and everything else can fall into place.
Starting the day early creates the time. To those night owls who think it’s game over already, I’m no early morning person. My university flatmate claims I growled at them for turning the lights on and for being happy in the mornings. I don’t remember – I was too in a daze for having to exist in the evil that is the morning to want to recall. It turns out even the most entrenched of night owls can, with determination and some weeks of feeling absolutely awful, get up before 6am.
When you manage it, this opens up the whole day. There is suddenly time to start the day well and know that no matter what happens later, you have achieved something. This way you can go to sleep happy when the day comes to a close.
If you’re to find the drive to study every day, you need to want to do it. Luckily most of us have something we want to do better. The challenge is acting on that desire. This does demand a lot from you – It can be exceptionally hard to be a complete beginner in something. It’s all too easy to fall into the ‘I’m no good at this’ trap before even really getting started. I personally think that overcoming this is very much possible with the help of sneaky mindset/psychological tricks that there isn’t space for in this article. For now, it hopefully suffices to say this and the tricks can be a topic for another day – acting on what you want to learn is the catalyst.
Learning is most effective when we want to. This is almost certainly the key ingredient that was missing for many of us back in school. Do you remember a subject you didn’t want to do, that in turn felt much harder than other subjects? Our brains are wired to learn what we enjoy better. As adults, we can exploit that by focussing on what will bring personal meaning into our lives.
To wrap up this post, I’d like to share what my current morning routine looks like when it goes properly, to show all this in practice.
Example daily study routine
- 6AM – Wake up and exercise (aiming and failing for a 5:30AM start for more exercise time)
- 6:30AM Shower, followed by breakfast
- 7AM – Make coffee
- 7:10AM – language study flashcards
- 7:30AM – focus on weak points of flashcards (core study ends here if I started later)
- 8:00AM language listening practice or reading on other subject (currently finance)
- 8:30AMGet ready to go to work, with the day already a success
It took me a good few months to settle into this. As a long-term evening person, consistently keeping up a daily morning study routine quite frankly hurt in the beginning. I also must admit to still regularly faltering and slacking on the intensity for a few days, or even weeks occasionally. I do however at this point never fail to fit in at the very least half an hour of study every morning.
I’ve just written a whole essay on doing so for a reason – a daily study routine is such a valuable thing to do, and I hope I’ve demonstrated that. You get to move develop yourself, learn things you always wanted to, and guarantee some achievement every single day. What’s not to like?
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