One of the key advice given by most productivity experts is that you should turn off the television, stop reading books and dedicate yourself to the work you are doing. Here’s the thing – I did it for 6 years!!
I gave up gaming which I loved, because it was taking too much of my time. I gave up reading novels because it was not productive. And the last straw, i gave up the most precious thing i had – Watching movies.
A year back, i left my day job to become a full-time marketing consultant, an E-commerce seller as well as a blogger. To compensate for the increased pressures of work, i completely gave up my fun time!! A BIG MISTAKE!!
2 months back the news came that torrent sites are down. It was everywhere – on facebook, on twitter, everywhere you can think of. When i was browsing all this, i started searching up for the latest good movies out there. I came up upon Avengers part 1 (I know its old). I watched it. Then i was curious and watched Avengers part 2 – age of Ultron and i loved that as well.
Then came a plethora of movies back to back. I could not juggle the work I had. What did i do?
Here’s the key point of this article – I juggled my fun and work so that my graph looked like this.
25% fun 25% sleep 50% work
It is a common time management graph, but i did not realise its importance till i actually implemented it.
For this to work, Let us divide the 24 hours in a day. As per above methodology, i have 12 hours for work and 12 hours for fun and sleep. I sleep 6 hours a day (I am 30, i can go by with less). So i have 6 whopping hours to divide between all the fun activities I could think of. Out of that 3 hours i gave to my family at night. I was still left with 3 hours, and my love for movies was rekindled.
In the morning, at Breakfast, I watch an hour of my favourite series – The big bang theory. Then I sit down to work. During lunch time, I have lunch pretty fast and then watch the first half of a film (Hollywood films are generally 2 hours at the max). And at the end of the day, when I am tired, I am excited to see the second half of the movie!! This carries me through the boring time as well.
Sounds a strange schedule?? Here’s what it did
- It stopped my day from getting all boring and all work and family oriented
- It kept me refreshed from morning itself, because I watched the thoroughly funny “The big bang theory” in the morning. (I am thinking of replacing it later with Game of thrones. Heard about it a lot).
- I have something to look forward to at breakfast, at lunch and after office hours. Something i love!!
- I had planned dedicated family time and i gave my whole 3 hours to the family (especially to my 1-year-old son) & i am with them on weekends
- I am enjoying life!! It is no longer all work and no play. It’s about a lot of work and a lot of play. I get in roughly 15 hours a week of movie time!! That’s a lot for a movie buff like me.
If movies did that to me and made me productive, then maybe it can do for you too. It’s not necessary that you watch movies only. You can do anything you like.
- Play games on Xbox or Playstation
- Go for a walk
- Ride a bicycle
- Meet friends
- Join a gym
In essence, divide your day so that it is an equal division between three things – Work, Play and Family. There are 2 crucial things to this schedule
- You have to plan your fun well in advance and you have to be very disciplined about it. The force is strong with indiscipline!!
- You have to be flexible – If one day you had it extra hard, you can relax the next day and this feeling will carry you forward through the tough times.
So, this is the reason that movies made me even more productive than i am. What is your favourite time poison and what gets your guns going? And are you enjoying life regularly or just one weekend at a time? I would love your thoughts on this!!
