The Great System to Learn Something New

“I don’t have time to learn that :(”

We often feel overwhelmed when we try to learn something new — this feeling is often accompanied by a sense of dread. We may feel that we don’t have the time, energy, or resources to learn something new, so we procrastinate and put it off. This leads to a vicious cycle of trying and failing, and eventually feeling defeated and like we can’t do anything. It’s a devastating moment of feeling like no matter what we do, we’ll never be able to learn something new.

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

Today, let’s rebuke these experiences and instill a new system in our life to learn new things, even if we feel like we have no time.

The perfect combo of Eisenhower matrix and the 5-hour rule by Benjamin Franklin

The Eisenhower Matrix is a concept we’ve heard of often. Despite this, I still find myself easily distracted by the many things around me. Perhaps, I’m missing something when creating the Matrix; it’s about asking the right questions: “Do I need to do this?”

The illusion of productivity has made us sink into a devastating moment. We’re kinda not knowing what is the important thing and due to lack of time sensitive, we procrastinate a lot more.

A healthy sense of urgency can increase our productivity, without feeling burned out by all the meaningless tasks that don’t add value.

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix

Let’s deep dive into the matrix:

1. Urgent and important: DO NOW
2. Important and not urgent: DECIDE
3. Urgent but not important: DELEGATE
4. Neither urgent nor important: DELETE

These four matrices enable us to ask specific questions about “what are the things we need to do first.” These exercises also train our brains when we’re flooded by too many tasks.

So, now you have decided and created your to-do list. Are you still feeling stuck and overwhelmed by the first step? I used to get cheap dopamine, like scrolling through social media, in order to increase my motivation. It feels like “oh, just five more minutes please”, and then I’d realize I had been scrolling for an hour. And now, I’m so hungry and need some kind of food.

I name this loop a vicious loop, an unending cycle if I don’t want to decide. There are tons of ways to tackle this. You may get familiar with the 5 minutes rule, or the 20 seconds rule.

Are we living with all these rules in case to boost our productivity? Probably, yes. We, humans, tend to have a deadline before doing something.

There are 24 hours in a day (or 1,440 minutes, if you really like to count your life away). The average person sleeps around 8 hours a day, plus seven to eight hours for work, and the rest is approximately 9 hours. We spend a lot of things in 9 hours a day, let’s say eating, drinking, housework, shopping, unpaid labor (care work), self-care, and many many more.

And yap, we still have at least a few hours to do with what we want.

Over the last few decades, a cottage industry examines and dissects the habits and values of self-made millionaires. The most popular finding is known as the “5-hour rule.” Benjamin Franklin was known to be the first who introduced this concept. It is actually a habit that he evolve in his life. He would devote (at least) an hour each day specifically to learning something new.

It can be understood that after a tiring day, we just want to relax.

However, there are 3 steps to the 5-hour rule:

1. Learn
   If you’re not enjoying reading that much, you can try another form of resources. Today, there are so many forms of information format, and it’s digestible.
2. Experiment
   In the book “Why Success Always Starts with Failure” Tim Harford says success means we “first, seek out new ideas and try new things; second, when trying something new, do it on a scale where failure is survivable; third, seek out feedback and learn from your mistakes as you go along. Try something different. Experimenting would be so fun and you’ll learn a great deal.
3. Reflect
   After a long effortful way to learn something new, it’s time to reflect. There are various types to reflect. Some people will do a 1 sentence diary, journal, and even 10 minutes of walking.

Increasing our productivity in a mindful state can feel like a luxurious goal, especially in our hustle-filled world. But it doesn’t have to be hard! Let’s get started — grab your supplies and create your 5-hour rule plan. It’s easy, and you can do it!

Thank you!