Writing for 10 minutes a day is great and all, but if you're not the type of person that can easily switch tasks and be immediately ready to perform then it's not going to work out for you. Similarly, if you get stuck on a task and just want to keep going until you're done, you're going to have a hard time stopping. When I was doing NaNoWriMo I generally tried to go for the estimate of ~1337 words a day, but some days I had good ideas and kept going. Other days I didn't and spent a lot of time thinking about where to take the story and didn't write a lot. I don't believe at any time I spent less than 30 minutes working. And even then, it was always on my mind. Different people have different abilities, I don't believe that this is generally applicable and different people may have different minima/maxima for how much time they take to start up a task.
Ten minutes a day
11–20 of 51 posts
Re: Ten minutes a day
#12So if I time-slice the 8 productive hours of my day into 10 minute slots, can I write 48 books in 499 days?
Of course not.
I've tried working on pet projects for 10 minutes before going to work each day. The problem I find is that while I might only do active work on the task for ten minutes, my brain is thinking about it for much longer.
Spending those ten minutes in the morning reduces my ability to do my day job because I've used up a significant fraction of my day's useful thinking budget. I find I can only sustain these pet projects when my day job is in a boring/easy phase. (This might have something to do with getting older - I'm 42, or it might be because my job isn't boring/easy much these days).
Re: Ten minutes a day
#13Recently I have start workout for 10 mins a day including warmup.
To go for an hour in the gym it's much harder because it take +30 mins to commute +15 min to shower. After 1 hour of gym I feel exhausted and I don't want to do it again next day.
But with 10 mins per day, I don't have to convince myself to do it, it's such an easy task and I feel better after doing it. I don't lose my time in commute and I do it every day which is much better than 3 times per week.
Most days I do 10 mins of meditation and with that I have two great habits that takes most 30 min from my time.
Re: Ten minutes a day
#14Recently I have start workout for 10 mins a day including warmup. To go for an hour in the gym it's much harder because it take +30 mins to commute +15 min to shower. After 1 hour of gym I feel exhausted and I don't want to do it again next day. But with 10 mins per day, I don't have to convince myself to do it, it's such an easy task and I feel better after doing it. I don't lose my time in commute and I do it every…
I have found cycling to be a good daily exercise. It becomes my commute so it takes no time out of my day also there is no way to give up. I can stop at any time at a gym but if I stop on my bike I still have to get back home.
I have a pretty brutal uphill way back home but I feel great after which makes me do it again the next day.
Re: Ten minutes a day
#15I never got into a place the 10 minutes a day would really help me accomplish anything. I do know it is possible, one day I would like to replicate something like [1], splitting a work-weeks worth of work into several months of pomodoro a day.
It kinda worked when I was attempting to write a blog, but even then I never really figured out how to make the routine stick and often it took me half of the designated time to even start writing.
This time-to-start was even worse when programming.
Well, one day!
Re: Ten minutes a day
#16I never got into a place the 10 minutes a day would really help me accomplish anything. I do know it is possible, one day I would like to replicate something like [1], splitting a work-weeks worth of work into several months of pomodoro a day. It kinda worked when I was attempting to write a blog, but even then I never really figured out how to make the routine stick and often it took me half of the designated time t…
I try to take inspiration from this article: https://fs.blog/2018/06/succeed-at-work/
I think a 15-minute resolution is more reasonable than a 10-minute resolution. If you assume that you allocate each block to a unique activity that means doing six different things per hour instead of doing only four things in the same timeframe.
There's nothing stopping you from using four blocks in a row for an activity, or two, or three, but the minimum amount of time to spend on something is 15 minutes which I think is more worthwhile than 10 minutes.
The only downside is it doesn't let you do two pomodoro blocks per hour, if that's something you want to incorporate into your routine.
Re: Ten minutes a day
#17So if I time-slice the 8 productive hours of my day into 10 minute slots, can I write 48 books in 499 days? Of course not. I've tried working on pet projects for 10 minutes before going to work each day. The problem I find is that while I might only do active work on the task for ten minutes, my brain is thinking about it for much longer. Spending those ten minutes in the morning reduces my ability to do my day job b…
What do you do? (asking for research purposes)
Re: Ten minutes a day
#18Recently I have start workout for 10 mins a day including warmup. To go for an hour in the gym it's much harder because it take +30 mins to commute +15 min to shower. After 1 hour of gym I feel exhausted and I don't want to do it again next day. But with 10 mins per day, I don't have to convince myself to do it, it's such an easy task and I feel better after doing it. I don't lose my time in commute and I do it every…
I have found cycling to be a good daily exercise. It becomes my commute so it takes no time out of my day also there is no way to give up. I can stop at any time at a gym but if I stop on my bike I still have to get back home. I have a pretty brutal uphill way back home but I feel great after which makes me do it again the next day.
Yep, it's great unless the uphill is actually on the way to the job, then it becomes not so great :-)
Re: Ten minutes a day
#19I use http://dontbreakthechain.com and have a few different 10 minute things in there.
Re: Ten minutes a day
#20I use http://dontbreakthechain.com and have a few different 10 minute things in there.
I'd love to hear from full time parents how they do routines like these.
I'm sure it's absolutely possible but between a 2 month and 2 year old I don't come close to finding the time to think about extra projects.