5 Things I Learned in My Skype Call with Benjamin Hardy — The #1 Writer on Medium
I never thought that this could happen.
A month ago, I started my personal blog at www.briantan.xyz, dreaming that I could be like some of my favorite bloggers online. I started by writing personal reflections about the different subjects I took in school, just so I could get into the flow of writing.
But I quickly realized that I could also use my blog to reach out to people I looked up to — and hopefully get them to notice me. So last week, I decided to write a blog post about the five best books I read in 2015. I ended up tweeting out the link to the five authors I featured, hoping that at least one of them would reply.
Thankfully, one of them did. I couldn’t have been happier when I saw this on Twitter — a reply and retweet by Benjamin Hardy- The Author of Slipstream Time Hacking!
But I didn’t want it to end there. I wanted to be able to talk to him, interview him, and get life-changing advice from him. So I replied with this:
So I emailed him to schedule the skype call with him, and this was the result:
I ended up having a one-hour conversation with him on Skype, and I interviewed him about his daily routines, how he “hacked time”, and how he juggles his PhD classes with his writing. He volunteered so much information about himself to me, and he was even more than happy to give me advice on my ambitions — both in being a startup founder and in being a professional writer. So out of pure inspiration from Benjamin, here are the five things I learned from our Skype call:
1. Find Ways to Hack Time.
This was what Benjamin’s book was about, and he clearly applied it to his life. He finished his college degree in Psychology in just three years. Not only that, but he got to submit 15 publications to psychology journals in just three months, thanks to working with a young professor on them. This was more submissions than some professors had made in their entire careers. I was blown away by this, and it made me realize how important it is to find “time hacks” in life.
2. Learn to Say No.
“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” — Bruce Lee
When I asked Benjamin about his productivity hacks, I was surprised at how simply he answered it: Learn to say no, and learn how to cut away the things that waste your time. He pointed out that a lot of other PhD students say yes to every request their professors make — even the ones they don’t want, and these end up taking a lot of their time. Also, he chose to not take an assistantship like other students, and instead focuses on his research, his writing, and his family.
3. Make time for the people you love.
When I asked Benjamin about his daily routines, I was surprised to hear how he had such a light schedule. “I stop working by 3 pm. I never want to work past 3 pm in my life.” He does this by waking up before 6 am, taking his classes in the morning, and focusing on writing and reading. He spends the rest of the day with his three kids and his wife, which is crucial family time that a lot of entrepreneurs miss out on.
4. For Bloggers — Build Your Mailing List.
After getting to know Benjamin, I decided to ask for advice about my blog instead — and he gave me advice that made total sense. The most important thing in a blog isn’t your content — it’s having a subscribe button for your mailing list. Apparently, in order to get a book deal these days, you need to have thousands of blog subscribers first. I haven’t set up a mailing list yet for myself, but I now plan on doing so soon.
5. Just Start Now.
This was the last piece of advice Benjamin gave me, and I made sure that it was the first piece of advice I applied. I wrote most of this blog post within minutes of our Skype call — hoping to get all that inspiration down onto paper. Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur, designer, programmer, or writer, we must pave the path to our dreams immediately. This is the way we can truly hack time, and it’s what Benjamin challenges us all to do.
So think about what dreams you have for yourself, and turn those dreams into realities. Because if there’s one takeaway I learned from this whole experience, it’s to just start now — and you’ll surprise yourself with what can happen.
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Brian Tan is a 20-year-old writer, UI/UX designer and front-end web developer from the Philippines. He’s also the co-founder and CEO of HangTime — a web app built to help students create and share class schedules with each other. Get in touch with him at brian@hangtimeapp.com.
