The temptations to screw around are everywhere. I used to love the ping pong table at my PA school. I would spend hours there playing ping pong and very specifically not working. I can’t imagine if I had a smartphone. I wouldn’t have gotten anything done. Good thing I’m old.
Get control of yourself by getting control of your time.
Schedule yourself a minimum study time. Let’s start with something easy. Let’s plan one hour. You are going to start at 7 PM and end at 8 PM tomorrow night. Put that on your calendar. Physically write it down.
You will not sit down at 7:01. You will be sitting down at 7:00 pm – ready to work. Keep this appointment with yourself. Build confidence in yourself and your work ethic.
At 8 pm, no matter what you are doing, you are done. Put the work down. Not at 8:01, but 8:00.
It is important to be honest with yourself. Trustworthy with yourself. If you say a specific time, keep to it.
I was scheduled for a 7am meeting one morning this week. I’m in the room at 6:55 and nothing. 7:05…7:10…still nothing.
There were other people there, but the meeting doesn’t really get underway until about 7:20. You are wasting my time and, maybe more importantly, your time. The late people win in this scenario. And it drives me nuts. It makes me think you place no value on my time. At that point, I’ve lost interest in the whole meeting because, clearly, the people running it place no value on my time or their time.
My son plays on a baseball team. We committed to play most of the summer. The team has practice three times week even during the summer. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Yes, Friday evenings in the summer. They are scheduled from 6-8pm.
We always arrive promptly at 5:50. The coaches show up at about 6:05 and then get practice started around 6:20 or 6:30. They go through one or two stations, and then do some batting practice. Inevitably, they run out of time. The practice may go as late as 8:30, so they can “get it all in.”
The team I used to coach had practice on Tuesday and Thursday from 6-7:30 pm. The kids are on the field taking ground balls starting at about 5:50. If you show up merely on time, our head coach would laughingly tell the parents, “If you want to be average and show up on time, that’s ok. Just don’t be late.” LOL
He’s joking, but he’s not. We got started on time. We ran the kids hard with a clear plan for 90 minutes and we quit right at 7:30 every time. This week was the first time in a year and half that we ran over. We went to 7:35 doing a tennis ball home run derby thing that the kids were loving.
Do you know how many kids miss our practices? Even in the summer? Maybe one. No one misses. No one comes late.
My other son’s team – at 6:15 there might be 6 of 12 kids there.
The same idea will work when dealing with yourself.
Have strong values. Be punctual. Most importantly, with yourself.
Now that you’ve made a very important appointment with yourself, treat this as if it’s gold.
Studying 6-7 tomorrow night.
Now follow through. Tell anyone who needs to know. I will not be available for ANYTHING from 6-7 tomorrow night. I’ve got an appointment I can’t miss. After 7, I will be free to help/play/watch whatever you want.
During that study session, you should be using The Final Step for 5-10 minutes.
During that study session, you should totally be following the principles in the MYTE.
Brian Wallace
