I Will Teach You To Be Rich: "I’m always on the lookout for “hidden gems,” or people who are doing remarkable work that the whole world hasn’t caught on to, yet.
Today, I asked my friend Cal Newport to illustrate how he completely dominates as a post-doc at MIT, author of multiple books, and popular blogger. How does he do it all?
Cal writes one of the best blogs on the Internet: Study Hacks. His guest post shows how you can take I Will Teach You To Be Rich principles — plus many others — and integrate them into a way to use your time effectively."
4 comments:
This article is fascinating. It really shows how much power you have over your schedule, and how much can be done in limited amounts of time. For an undergraduate student however, I don't think something like this is totally possible. With 56 unit hours a week, how can we expect to cut down to a 5 day a week schedule. And those 56 unit hours fluctuate. Depending on projects, we can have 80+ in a week. It makes a fixed schedules hard to do, especially with due dates, etc. Eventually, this seems like a good idea, but for now surviving on random schedules is the best i can do.
It seems like the over hanging topic within the article was knowing when you are actually going to work versus when you think you're going to work. I think that most people know when they work best, and at least in the theater world, that time does not always matter at all. The fact that some people are lucky enough to have a 9-5ish job means they can train themselves to work well during this time.
As soon as one begins to organize one's schedule, they begin to realize exactly how much free time they really have. I know for one that at certain ties I spend a lot more time on a project then is needed. Also, in doing things like this, many of us pass the point of diminishing return very rapidly. If you always stay before that point -- way before, then your productivity will skyrocket. This is why no one should ever pull an all-nighter.
Anyone can trim down a schedule, all you need to do is get rid of the non-productive time and things you don't need to do at all, then take what's left and make it fit into the time you want it to take. Granted, that's about like saying that anyone can build an airplane, all you need is a couple wings, something to put a pilot in, and an engine or two - it leaves out all of the technology that is the hard part of the job. Knowing what you can trim is the first hard part, then after that knowing how to actually trim it and make it stay trimmed is even harder.
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