Hey guys,
I can’t seem to find my other clock (I must of uninstalled it) –
Anyway yesterday was a little ‘day of celebration’ as I realised I had gone one-week without watching television.
(Television for me is an umbrella term for any tv show or movie).
I will caveat that by saying I am still watching ‘New Girl’ for 20-40 minutes a day with my partner.
Outside of this however, my recent shows –
Jack Ryan, The Last Kingdom, the forthcoming Peaky Blinders (that was pencilled in next) and the rest are all gone.
You always discover how much you need/miss something when you take it away.
I’m pleased to discover the transition was easier that I thought. Especially given we’ve just come out of a bank holiday weekend where I had Friday evening until Monday evening to watch tv shows.
Checking back at my blog – I started this journey 13-days ago so it’s not been as long as I thought at all – but everyday I’m seeing new changes.
I’m walking more for one thing. So I’ll try and do at least 90 minutes of walking per day now between walking with Strawberry after dinner (another relatively new habit) as well as walking by myself in the mornings – I’ll go after this blog.
I’m still using social media but my use of it has now become extremely intentional.
I’ve installed a LinkedIn newsfeed blocker, a Facebook newsfeed blocker, a YouTube homepage blocker. I’ve also turned Facebook ‘chat’ off.
Lydia now manages my Facebook account status updates:
I’ve written out about 13 posts so far which I’ve asked Lydia to post 1x every 2 days – so that should be enough content for the next 26 days.
I’m also asking Lydia to respond so I can keep an engaged social media following. And in fact I’ve written a lot of content about SEO – so perhaps I”ll win some SEO clients from it let’s see – but this is forcing the quality of my content up.
Looking at Audible I’ve completed 23 hours of listening to Audio this month. And given I listen at 1.75x speed – that’s 40.25 hours of content…that’s a decent amount.
The other element in this that has improved is that I’ve started a food meal delivery service around 2-weeks back. The 18th May was my first day.
So now Monday-Friday I’m getting an amazingly well-cooked meal sent to me. I’ll talk more about this in an exclusive blog – as I’ve also just asked them to extend this to 7-days a week.
It’s saving me on average a minimum of 90 minutes a week – but more realistically 180 minutes or more – in going shopping/ordering food/cooking/dealing with dishes.
It’s also saving me the time spent trying to figure out what in the hell I should eat.
I’d like to add within all of this that my workday and personal life have been totally unimpacted by my changes.
[convertful id=”197358″]
I’m definitely on Whatsapp less as I block it from 2030-1100 – but the important relationships remain and the weaker ones have gone – and leaving a couple of noisy whatsapp groups has done it works.
I’ve (in the middle of writing this blog) have actually reconnected Grum.co – an Instagram scheduling tool that I’ve had for a few years that I totally forgot about – and will resume ‘posting’ on social media every other day.
Again similar to Facebook – I’ll spend 30-60 minutes a month collating a load of images and I’ll ask Lydia to post them for me.
________________
It’s definitely becoming more evident to me now how small changes can make an absolutely huge impact upon my life.
Taking a sledgehammer to my television and social media habits has given me room to – right now listen to 23 hours of audible – which has been brilliant.
I’ve finished 4 books and I’m in the midst of getting through two more (one is a ‘storybook’ – Shoe Dog – the memoir of Phil Knight the founder of Nike).
My reflections upon these last two weeks is that now I understand how establishing certain ‘one-time habits’ can lead to powerful changes in your life that can really separate you from the many others in terms of the progress you make.
______________
Now that Strawberry and I go for after-dinner walks, we’ve become closer as a couple.
The dishwasher that I finally got around to buying has already saved her 2-3 hours per week and the associated stress with having to worry about washing the dishes
(my dishwashing is pretty awful so I’ve not been allowed to wash up for sometime now)
____________
I want to walk through some of the changes that have also come within my businesses as a consequence of all of this reading
I’m now realising that I need to focus upon the essentials and allow the team I have to do their work. So Mominul – my Bangladeshi friend and affiliate SEO expert has taken charge of all of the affiliate websites.
I’ve left the day-to-day runnings with him – which is saving me 2-4 hours per week.
We’ve got a revenue-share agreement which he is happy with and we will work to grow the business – that is 4-websites we have together.
Likewise, with the SEO clients, we have at Pearl Lemon – I’ve decided to allow my team to manage the bulk of the email communication with clients – which they handle just fine for 90% of it.
It takes me an hour a week to respond to any client emails, and maybe 30-60 minutes maximum where and when phone calls are needed – so it’s totally manageable.
With our internal websites for Pearl Lemon (we have four) – I’m again allowing the team to manage this – whereas before I was heavily involved.
Furthermore, our head of internal and client content Ester is now managing the work with our head link-builder Atit, whilst Melanie is taking care of affiliate and any overflow content.
My calendar-booking times in my youcanbookme are only Tue-Thur 2-5.30pm. Outside of this you cannot book me – so my time is more protected. I have internal team meetings outside of these times from 11am onwards.
I’m keen to see if only having 3-days to book me will impact my company growth but I’m hopeful it won’t – and I’m confident that 9.5 hours of opening times for meetings is more than sufficient to actually grow my business.
______________
There are still several things to work on – which are habits that will be harder for me.
As Cal Newport refers to – doing ‘Deep Work’ is going to be an important next step in my journey – and I realise that when it comes to my work – I’ve somehow managed to avoid doing any of that for a few years.
____________
What is happening though – by modifying my social media access, minimising television time, aggressively limiting my calendar bookings – I’ve opened up a whole new load of time – something in the range of an additional 18 hours a week I’d realistically say.
And I already wake up at 430am 3-5 days a week to get on with things.
I’m excited for the competitive advantage these changes are going to give me in the months to come.
_________
Join me 🙂
