M2M Day 157: I’m overwhelmed
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For April, my goal is to hold a 30-minute conversation in Hebrew on the future of technology.
Today was another off-day, as far as Skype Hebrew lessons are concerned.
In general, my plan is to use most of my off-days as major writing days (I’ve previously explained that writing long, Hebrew monologues is the most effective way to prepare for my conversations).
The problem is… I’m seriously overwhelmed by these “long, Hebrew monologues”: Sitting down to write, in Hebrew, a well-formed explanation of “The entire future of healthcare” or “The entire future of economics” or “The entire future of robots” is a major undertaking.
As a result, I didn’t end up writing one word of Hebrew today. I couldn’t motivate myself to start.
This is clearly a problem, since this is my predominate learning strategy. So, rather than trying to muster up the willpower every day to write, I should instead identify the underlying problem and create a system to address it. Here’s what I’ve determined…
Problem 1: I haven’t yet properly defined the topics I wanted to discuss, even in English. So, I’m doubly intimated by 1. Writing in Hebrew, and 2. Developing my perspective on the future.
Solution 1: Before I try to do any more writing in Hebrew, I need to explicitly spell out all my ideas on the future in English. This is still intimidating, but something I believe I can motivate myself to do. Once I can do this, I will only need to motivate the “writing in Hebrew” part on a daily basis, which should be easier.
Problem 2: Since I don’t know how much material I will have (see Problem 1), I don’t know how to properly pace myself. Theoretically, I can write forever on some of the topics I mention above (the future of healthcare, economics, robots, etc.). The lack of a clear finish line is also quite intimidating.
Solution 2: I need to create a writing calendar, on which I explicitly assign specific subjects to each day. Then, every day, I will have a very clear sense of what I need to accomplish and when it is done. I should also create a corresponding Skype calendar that assigns topics I’ve already written about to my 30-minute speaking sessions.
I’ll work on addressing these solutions tomorrow, hopefully creating a much better structure for my training.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.
