“round black chronograph watch at 12:00” by Y U C E L M O R A N on Unsplash

How One Hour Can Change Your Perspective

The Daily Grind #67

Eric S Burdon
Sep 7, 2018 · 4 min read

I’ve never been much for timed challenges. I’ve talked about the Pomodoro technique from time to time but I have never once applied it in my own life.

It goes to show that there is still some level of hypocrisy in my own life.

But all of that changed yesterday when I challenged myself to a simple concept. I wanted to do a number of things on Medium in the span of an hour.

This was primarily inspired by Tom Kuegler’s challenge The Medium Power Hour Challenge where you complete all of your engagement work in the span of an hour.

You take 30 minutes to write a title, generate ideas and write the article.

You take 15 minutes engaging with 3–5 people.

You then take another 15 minutes to read through an article on your feed from a big writer and reread again by answering a series of questions.

It’s simple in principle, however from the very first day of practicing that, a lot of things shifted in my own life.

The Passage Of Time

I’ve been typically a fast writer, however, as of late it’s taken me a bit longer to create articles. I’ve stared at blank pages for a few minutes, I get distracted, etc.

A lot of people may say that’s because I put out content day after day and “that’s the problem with daily writers”

Please. I’ve got a fucking list of topics and I’m adding to it every day.

Why I’m not tapping into it is a whole other story (another topic idea.)

But the thing is is that it took me longer to be writing an article out. I was being more nitpicky about what it was that I was writing, or Grammarly keeps popping out telling me I did something wrong for the 600th time.

Ugh.

But with light of this challenge, the passage of time for me has been lessened. I’m focusing on the time and getting my thoughts out on paper as opposed to muddling them over and over again.

There is more certainty behind the words that I’m typing.

Renewed confidence in my own craft.

Parkinson’s Law

The less time you have the more time you focus on the things that you care most about.

I don’t care about Grammarly.

I don’t care about pausing and gathering my thoughts.

I care about writing spur of the moment, unorganized, and muddled mess.

At least to the point that it has some semblance of fluidity to it. (Cause I do care deeply about my readers)

This law has started to work on me in this particular light and in the span of an hour I have more focus than ever before. It’s to the point that I’m actually hooked to it already. And it’s only day 2 of this experiment.

How Much Time Do You Have?

We’re all on timers at the end of the day and time is one of our precious commodities. I don’t need to repeat that as I’m sure so many people know this. And yet I just did.

By limiting that amount of time you dwell on something, you are forcing yourself to avoid some of the minor details like the Grammarly prompts or the distractions from your flashing water bottle (STAY HYDRATED!!). This is important because you are focusing on what does matter at the time. At least temporarily.

Progress.

Fulfillment.

The hustle.

Development of yourself.

Rapid organization of your thoughts.

And understanding of your core values.

To your growth!

Eric S Burdon

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Eric S Burdon

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Entrepreneur, positive-minded. I used to say a lot, now I do a lot. Documenting my growth. Support me on Patreon: http://bit.ly/2pIEPFR

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