How many times do you have a giant list of things to do and you think “I’m just going to take Thursday off and get all of my errands and household chores done at once, that way I can free up time through the rest of my week?”

Yeah, me neither. Because really…who has a whole day to set aside? Sometimes, I even struggle to find an hour for myself. Who am I kidding…most days, it’s hard for me to find a few minutes.

Here’s the thing…there’s a better way.

Let’s relate this to learning a new language. I’ll give you two scenarios…

Scenario numero uno. How effective would it be for you to sit down for an entire day, pouring over translated dictionaries and worksheets, listening to audio tapes and forcing yourself to remember the difference between verbs and their conjugated forms? Not very effective. In all likelihood, you would end up frustrated, bored and ready to quit…and you wouldn’t remember half of what you learned by the next day!

Or, there’s scenario number two. How effective would it be to set aside a mere 20 minutes a day to learn a couple new words, practice a new verb conjugation and repeat back an audio conversation without the pressure of spending a whole day forcing yourself to learn a new, difficult language?

When we overwhelm ourselves with our impossible to-do list, we set ourselves up to fail before we even begin! Instead, if we chunk the big tasks down into 20 minute intervals, we are much more likely to complete them and feel a sense of accomplishment. We will feel as if we are getting more done (even if the workload or task is exactly the same size as before) and we will feel motivated to continue getting things done.

This tactic can be applied to any list, task or new learning experience. So, here’s my challenge to you:  set aside 20 minutes today to get something done. Set a timer and GO! Don’t dilly dally…just focus for those 20 minutes on getting the job done.

Then, come on over to my VIP Group  and tell us what you did!

Until next time!