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Why I was at a party making thumbnails at 1:30am
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Hey everyone! Two nights ago, I was at a party, hunched over my computer at 1:30am in the morning working on some YouTube thumbnails. I was a few (fun) beverages in, and I wasn't sure if the work I was doing was productive, but I was doing it nonetheless. So why was I working on thumbnails at 1:30am? A couple of weeks ago, I went to an entrepreneur mixer (I know, very fancy) with some young professionals working in Melbourne. One of the icebreakers involved discussing the habits that we were proud of, and one person there talked about how they had become fluent in a language by studying it everyday for 30 minutes (shout out to Trang Nova!) I left feeling inspired, and set myself the goal to work on YouTube everyday for at least 30 minutes. Over the last couple of days, I went on a road trip for the Monash Medical Students Society’s committee retreat. This involved many meetings, team bonding activities and lots of fun, which meant my usual priorities were (happily) thrown aside. At 1:30am in the morning, I realised that I hadn’t done my YouTube work for the day so I made the choice to leave the party to do it. I'm now 10 days into my consistent work streak, and I'm incredibly happy that I've done it. Why 30 minutes a day is so powerful: I’m a strong believer in setting daily and weekly goals. I have been meditating daily for almost 5 years, and I’ve started a stretching routine which I have almost done every day this year. Daily goals are so powerful because they compound so quickly. From doing 30 minutes of YouTube work everyday for 10 days, I have accumulated 5 hours of work that I would not have done otherwise. I notice that I’m more proactive with my work, and I’m coming up with better ideas when I spend more time on YouTube. The fact that it’s only 30 minutes means that I can’t do things perfectly. On the other hand, It’s long enough that I can’t cheat by productively procrastinating. If there’s a long term goal that you’re working towards, I’d highly recommend setting a simple daily task that you can commit to. It should be hard enough that it feels worthwhile, but also not so hard that it’s impossible to do. Even though I went through the momentary pain of leaving the party, I was happy about staying true to my goal. I was back to having fun after not particularly long, and now I have a good story to tell 😊 - Emil |
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Sign up for my weekly newsletter where I share exclusive productivity tips, useful life advice and insights from my life as a medical student in Australia.
Hey everyone! Perfectionism is a silent killer, but there are several ways to break through it. The signs of perfectionism are often insidious and easily missed. They can manifest in every aspect of your life, and can lead to feelings of stagnation In this newsletter I’ll share how I recognise perfectionism in my life and some strategies to overcome it. In medicine, I notice perfectionism the most when I’m targeting areas I know I’m weaker in, like metabolic derangements for example. I’ll...
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Hey everyone! Recently, I embarked on a free trial of WHOOP. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a fitness wearable that tracks your heart rate, sleep and “strain” (a metric of how hard your body has been working). Overall, it’s supposed to help you become healthier by encouraging good sleeping habits and motivating you to hit personalised exercise targets. I’ve been using it for approximately two weeks, and I’ve found it to be a really enjoyable experience. That being said, I’m deciding to...