How Do I Manage My Studies with the Time Constraints of a 9-5 Job?

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03.360 | All right, let's move on to some questions about deep work.

00:00:10.000 | Our first question comes from Jamie.

00:00:12.760 | Jamie says, if you work a 9 to 5 job

00:00:17.000 | and would like to study part-time for postgraduate

00:00:20.780 | studies, what time management strategies would you suggest

00:00:24.120 | or type of planning would you do,

00:00:26.280 | as well as what techniques would you

00:00:27.800 | use to learn the information faster?

00:00:32.280 | Well, Jamie, if you're going to do academic work

00:00:36.800 | and you have time constraints-- like you have here,

00:00:38.960 | you have a 9 to 5 job and you have to fit this around--

00:00:42.200 | deploying a strategy that I call the student workday

00:00:46.360 | is probably going to be particularly important.

00:00:48.480 | Now, this is an idea that I used to expound back

00:00:50.960 | in the early days of my blog when

00:00:52.960 | I was talking primarily to students

00:00:54.880 | who had busy schedules.

00:00:57.320 | And the idea behind the student workday

00:00:58.900 | was to look at the classes you were taking

00:01:01.760 | and then identify, what is the work that I know

00:01:05.000 | has to happen on a repeated basis?

00:01:06.880 | Is it a reading assignments that have to get done every week,

00:01:09.880 | a lab report that has to get written up every two weeks,

00:01:13.160 | a problem set that has to be solved weekly,

00:01:15.320 | or whatever it is?

00:01:16.360 | Figure out the work that you know happens repeatedly

00:01:19.360 | and answer the question of, when am I going to do that work?

00:01:23.840 | Same time, same days, every week.

00:01:26.520 | You actually put that on your calendar,

00:01:28.640 | just like you have your dentist appointment or meeting

00:01:31.480 | a friend for drinks.

00:01:32.320 | You have to figure this out.

00:01:33.640 | Now, you work a 9 to 5 job, so you might not

00:01:35.520 | have a lot of options, but the work has to get done.

00:01:37.680 | So identify where that work is going to happen.

00:01:40.960 | Maybe you have an 8 AM to 9 AM block on a day

00:01:43.600 | that you work from home, and that's

00:01:44.960 | when you do the first draft of your problem set,

00:01:47.000 | and you do that on Mondays.

00:01:48.200 | And then after dinner, you do a 6 to 7 30

00:01:51.040 | block to finish off that problem set.

00:01:53.040 | Maybe you take 90 minutes out of the middle of the days

00:01:55.960 | on Wednesday to do your reading assignments,

00:01:57.800 | because again, maybe you have some flexibility,

00:01:59.880 | and you can find that time, and there's

00:02:01.720 | a conference room in your office that you can go to that's

00:02:03.720 | quiet and a good place to do that work.

00:02:05.560 | But you figure out, this is all the work that

00:02:07.360 | has to get done on a regular basis.

00:02:09.280 | This is when I do it, this time, this day.

00:02:13.120 | I don't have to think about it.

00:02:14.360 | It's routine.

00:02:15.760 | Advanced tip here, throw in where that work happens.

00:02:18.400 | OK, as long as I'm fixing when it happens,

00:02:20.200 | why don't I also throw in where?

00:02:23.080 | So that I can find locations I associate just

00:02:25.600 | with that work, and it leads to me shifting into a deep work

00:02:29.760 | mode quicker.

00:02:30.640 | So I go to this library to do this work.

00:02:33.240 | I have a home office in my basement for that work.

00:02:35.320 | You want that ritual and routine surrounding this work.

00:02:38.680 | What I'm trying to do for you here, Jamie,

00:02:40.440 | is get rid of any on the fly decision

00:02:43.720 | making about what should I do today, what's due soon.

00:02:48.200 | That's what's going to get you in trouble.

00:02:49.960 | If you just fly by the seat of your pants and say,

00:02:51.800 | oh man, I got something due tomorrow,

00:02:53.360 | and I was at work, and I went to dinner,

00:02:55.240 | and I went to the gym, and it's 8,

00:02:56.680 | and it's going to take four hours,

00:02:58.440 | that's where you get into trouble.

00:03:00.640 | So find when and where that work is going to happen.

00:03:02.800 | Fix on your calendar.

00:03:03.640 | Stop thinking about scheduling.

00:03:05.800 | Now what happens if you can't fit it?

00:03:08.160 | It's just not reasonable.

00:03:09.200 | You're taking up every evening, and it's

00:03:10.720 | taking up all your hours, and you have no give.

00:03:12.720 | You have no time for exercise.

00:03:14.000 | You have no time for dinner.

00:03:16.080 | Well, now you are facing that productivity dragon.

00:03:18.920 | This is the reality.

00:03:19.800 | I don't have time.

00:03:20.520 | If you don't have time, you have to see you don't have time.

00:03:23.200 | This happens more than you would think.

00:03:25.600 | There's a semi--

00:03:27.600 | well, famous to me--

00:03:29.320 | I'll say important to me-- blog post I wrote years ago.

00:03:33.040 | It must have been like 2008, maybe even 2007.

00:03:36.360 | And it was about a student I was advising at MIT.

00:03:39.280 | She didn't work a 9 to 5 job, but the number of activities

00:03:42.040 | that she was involved with might as well have been a 9 to 5 job.

00:03:45.800 | We went through this exercise.

00:03:47.640 | What's everything you need to do on a regular basis?

00:03:49.760 | Let's find time for it on the calendar.

00:03:52.200 | And we couldn't fit it.

00:03:53.760 | We ran out of room.

00:03:55.640 | And I said to her--

00:03:56.760 | her name was Lena--

00:03:57.880 | Lena, you obviously are doing too much.

00:04:00.760 | I'm looking at this calendar.

00:04:02.080 | We cannot actually fit the work.

00:04:03.640 | The work is the work.

00:04:04.400 | We can't fit it in.

00:04:05.240 | We made it as efficient as possible.

00:04:06.700 | We can't fit it in.

00:04:08.200 | But she couldn't bear say no.

00:04:09.920 | She couldn't sit and bear say no to things.

00:04:11.880 | She couldn't take things off of her plate.

00:04:13.600 | The next semester, she had to go on leave for mental health.

00:04:17.640 | It just completely overwhelmed her.

00:04:19.080 | So I always say, you've got to face the productivity dragon

00:04:21.680 | here.

00:04:21.800 | Here's what I want to do.

00:04:22.800 | When am I going to do it?

00:04:23.880 | If you have time, good.

00:04:24.840 | And if you don't, you might want to rethink this plan.

00:04:27.160 | Only then, once you know when this work is going to happen

00:04:30.200 | and where it's going to happen, and it all

00:04:31.400 | fits nicely into your schedule, and you're not

00:04:33.040 | thinking about scheduling, and you're not

00:04:34.280 | making decisions on the fly, you're not staying up

00:04:36.120 | late all night because you forgot about your problem set

00:04:38.040 | until late the night before, once you've done all that,

00:04:41.120 | then care about your study habits themselves.

00:04:43.520 | You want to make these blocks as small as possible

00:04:45.560 | while still getting the work done well.

00:04:48.520 | That comes down to how you study.

00:04:50.920 | I would recommend my book, How to Become a Straight A Student,

00:04:54.080 | for a deep dive on how the most efficient students get

00:04:58.480 | their work done.

00:05:00.600 | I will just give you two very brief hints about what

00:05:03.000 | you're going to find in there.

00:05:04.720 | Hint number one, your work accomplished as a student

00:05:08.920 | is the product of the time you spend

00:05:12.120 | and the intensity of your focus.

00:05:14.880 | So if you are trying to do your schoolwork

00:05:16.680 | with a low intensity of focus, i.e.

00:05:19.960 | you're looking at your phone, you're looking at email,

00:05:21.880 | you're looking at Slack, you have the TV in the background,

00:05:24.600 | it's going to take a lot more time in that equation

00:05:27.040 | to get the same amount of work done,

00:05:28.880 | versus if when you work, you're 100% focused,

00:05:32.160 | that intensity of focus is maxed out,

00:05:34.760 | the time required to get the work done is going to go down.

00:05:37.040 | You need to hack that equation if you're

00:05:39.640 | going to get this work done with a 9 to 5 job.

00:05:41.960 | Two, banish the word study from your vocabulary.

00:05:46.520 | That's way too vague, that's way too emotional.

00:05:50.600 | You got to be instead incredibly specific.

00:05:52.520 | For this type of work, how am I going to do it?

00:05:55.400 | And what evidence do I have that this

00:05:56.960 | is the right way to do it?

00:05:58.640 | How to become a straight A student will get you

00:06:00.560 | all those details, it'll walk you down that path,

00:06:02.600 | but those are the big picture summaries

00:06:04.520 | of what you might find.

00:06:05.440 | All right, so summary, schedule all your work in advance,

00:06:07.840 | you know when it's going to happen.

00:06:09.360 | And then two, get very serious about your work habits

00:06:11.980 | once that time set aside.

00:06:13.680 | That's your best bet to succeed with studies,

00:06:17.920 | with a full time job, without making your life

00:06:20.800 | into a joyless grind.

00:06:22.640 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:06:26.000 | (upbeat music)

00:06:28.580 | (upbeat music)

How Do I Manage My Studies with the Time Constraints of a 9-5 Job?

Chapters