I’ll just be honest and up front here – I’ve been struggling with making progress on some of my goals as of late.
I’ve been having a tough time keeping up with some of the habits I really value – including reading regularly and going to the gym three times a week – and I’ve also been slow to make progress on some big, important projects.
The main reason I’m having these struggles is that pretty much all my time has been going to video production. I absolutely love making videos, and the growth of the YouTube channel over the past months has been incredibly encouraging. Each week, I try to get better at making videos, and I think doing so has paid off.
However, I’ve realized that a lot of the parts in my video production process are inefficient. The template I use to start video projects isn’t optimized, and I really need to create some re-usable assets for things I do regularly in videos.
I haven’t done these things as of yet, though, because I’ve been letting each week’s video turn into an urgent project that can’t be set aside. Whenever I’ve gained extra time, I’ve funneled it into fiddling with little parts of videos that nobody other than me would probably recognize or appreciate.
My video production process has become a victim of Parkinson’s Law, which states:
“Work expands to fill the time allotted for it.”
This week, I’m solving those problems. And I’ve got some good friends to thank for the needed kick in the butt.
Each week, I get on a Skype call with a “mastermind group” of sorts (I’m not a fan of that term, but eh) which is composed of:
- Stephen Warley, founder of the Unstuckable Podcast
- Stefano Ganddini, creator of Collegetopia (and author of an amazing guest post on networking for introverts)
- Zach Sexton, part of the team over at Asian Efficiency
During our calls, we go through a structured agenda and help each other figure out what’s working, what we’re struggling with, and how we can each make better progress on our goals.
This week, they encouraged me to put a little less time into my weekly video and to divert the resulting free time to building more efficient processes and to putting in work on my habits and projects.
That’s exactly what I did. This week’s video took me far less time to make than usual (though I’ll admit I had a bit of fun making the intro), and I’ve spent the rest of the week investing in the future efficiency of my production process. Boom.
Also, one of the big projects I’m working on is a print version of my book! (You can get the e-book version for free in the next section)
People have been requesting it, so I’m going to finish my print draft this week and have it available on Amazon very soon.
If you’re unable to see the video above, you can view it on YouTube.
Looking for More Study Tips?
Like I mentioned above, I wrote a free book on improving your grades and it’s called 10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades (While Studying Less).
The book covers topics like:
- Defeating procrastination
- Getting more out of your classes
- Taking great notes
- Reading your textbooks more efficiently
…and several more. It also has a lot of recommendations for tools and other resources that can make your studying easier.
If you’d like a free copy of the book, let me know where I should send it:
I’ll also keep you updated about new posts and videos that come out on this blog (they’ll be just as good as this one or better) 🙂
Bonus Resource!
Last week, I discovered an ambient soundscape of the Ravenclaw common room from Harry Potter, and boy oh boy does it make for some great study sessions.
Sure, there are other ones for Gryffindor, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff, but… you know me. Ravenclaw = best house.
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