For most of my life I have had a passion for creative projects. This would come in the form of YouTube videos, graphic design projects or even this post itself. I would always love the feeling of getting lost in the work and overcoming new challenges or making loads of progress because it was just so exhilarating. Now that I am getting a bit older and having more “responsibilities”, I have felt that I don’t have as much time to do these things as much as I used to when I was younger. Even though I do have more to do, I still have plenty of time usually, so I struggled to put my finger on why my day would just consist of uni, eat, sleep, repeat.
Then the other day I watched a YouTube video by Alex Hormozi called “This Simple Productivity System Made Me $100 Million”. This video literally felt like Alex had read my mind.
What Is The Concept?
Most people need to manage their time like a maker, or a manager. A maker will block out large chunks of time or even the entire day so that they can focus on creative projects. These kind of projects would be writing a book, editing a video or designing a logo. A manager on the other hand would have a day full of small blocks that would consist of meetings, appointments and other shorter tasks.
Most people will generally fall into one category or the other for the most part. But entrepreneurs (or a full-time student who has creative endeavours like me) will need to switch between being a manager or a maker quite often. This will cause a disproportionate hit on your maker blocks. Why is that you ask? Here is why. A makers morning doing deep work can be entirely ruined by a 15 minute meeting. This is because they wont be able to get in the zone, or sometimes won’t even be able to make a start on the work. The anticipation of the meeting will distract them from doing their proper work. To a manager this is just another meeting, but for a maker it can be their entire morning.
How I’ve Applied it to Myself as a Student
Before saying how I use my time with this framework, I think it’s important to understand what my priorities are in regards to what I spend my time on each day.
- Prayers.
- Going to the gym.
- Making notes on the work I have done that day.
- Going through either some Anki cards or passmed Qs.
- Making progress on some form of content (YouTube, blogs, newsletter etc).
- Making progress on a skill (like graphics, editing, wed designs etc).
Aside from prayers, these things aren’t what I need to get done everyday, but instead to have done them by the end of the week. Looking at my goals on a weekly basis instead of a daily one is much more liberating.
During The Working Day
As of writing this post, I am about 3 weeks into my 3rd year of med school. This is the first year of 3 where I am at clinical placement full time. Throughout the 9-5 day I will have some teaching as well as some downtime to maybe do some work etc. Some days I have nothing at all.
On the days that are packed with teaching, I use that time to go to the wards to get some clinical skills signed off (taking bloods, bloop pressure etc). If there aren’t many opportunities on that specific day, then I can focus on doing some passmed questions to get some practice in (I also find passmed Qs fun so I guess that helps haha). These all fall under the manager style of tasks – so batching them into small pockets of time during a heavy day, means when I’m home there’s a lot less time pressure for my other work.
On the days where there isn’t much teaching, I would probably stay on the wards for a bit until lunch time (12pm), and then make my way home to do some more maker work there.
Sometimes it would probably make sense on paper to stay or go home at certain times, but in reality it can be a bit different for me at the moment. This is just because traffic can get so intense if I leave any later than 2:45. And the reason why I usually don’t stay until after lunch (when there’s no teaching after) is because that hour is protected time for the patients, so since I can’t do much on the wards at that time, it would probably be better to head home.
Once I’m Home
Before I am actually home, I will most likely have gone to the gym. This is because I know once I step into my house, there’s not much chance I’ll make it to the gym🤣.
After gym I usually get home around 4:30pm on a heavy teaching day, or around 2pm on a light day.
By the time I’ve showered and eaten I usually have around 4 hours before I go to bed. I use this time to make notes on what I have covered in the day, make some notes/flashcards on some lectures and then do some content creation stuff like editing a video or writing this post. These are more maker style tasks.
Weekends
I consider weekends the chance where I can graft out sessions in both maker and manager style. I prefer getting the tough things out of the way in the morning such as going to the gym and going through flashcards. Then in the afternoon and evening block of time I will do maker tasks like editing or making notes.
How I’ve Been Finding It
I have found that thinking of my time in this way has been pretty eye opening. Now instead of forcing tasks to get done in an awkward time frame, I now just push it to fit a time slot more suited to that task.
Of course this has its limitations as well. Sometimes it just isn’t possible to have full blocks of time dedicated to each style as things can just come up (especially as a student). The way I combat this is by one of the things I mentioned earlier – having a weekly goal. Before this I used to beat myself up if I missed even 1 thing off my to-do list, but now I just move the task to another suitable day in my planner – this has taken off so much pressure by thinking in weekly time periods.
Final Thoughts & Conclusion
Overall, using this framework for my time has made a big impact on the way I get my work done now. I actually feel like I can get things done instead of just panicking over missing one little task here and there.
On the other hand, I can also appreciate the fact that this isn’t the be all and end all of my productivity – it is simply a mental tool in order to help me get work done. I often find it difficult to appreciate that I’m not bound by these concepts forever – life is a day by day process, it can sometimes get a bit all over the place and that’s fine.
Thank you for reading this.
I hope it helped.
— Aqeel
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