avatarGarry Lee

Summary

Garry has utilized an extra 30 minutes each morning over three months to enhance various aspects of his life, including LinkedIn engagement, exercise, writing, home schooling, and a side business.

Abstract

Garry's decision to wake up 30 minutes earlier each day has led to significant personal and professional benefits. He has dedicated time to engaging with content on LinkedIn, which has increased the visibility of his own posts. He has incorporated additional exercise into his routine, particularly enjoying the addition of weight training. Garry has also made strides in his writing, using the quiet morning hours to outline and develop articles. Additionally, he has streamlined his role as a home school teacher by preparing for the day ahead, and he has managed to grow a small eCommerce business during these early moments. The project has not only improved his productivity but also had a positive impact on his mood and weekend activities.

Opinions

  • Garry believes in the power of focused, uninterrupted time in the morning for personal development.
  • He values discipline and preparation, emphasizing the importance of knowing what to do with the extra time before going to bed.
  • Garry is a proponent of single-tasking, asserting that multitasking leads to time wastage and inefficiency.
  • He recognizes the importance of engagement on LinkedIn for professional visibility and network growth.
  • Garry sees exercise as a critical component of mental and physical well-being, which also enhances his work performance.
  • He agrees with the notion that regular writing practice improves skills and increases reach, aspiring to earn more from his writing.
  • Garry finds the quiet morning time particularly conducive to overcoming the initial hurdle of starting a new article.
  • He views his morning preparation for home schooling as a time-saving strategy that reduces interruptions later in the day.
  • Garry is open to exploring new ventures, such as his eCommerce side business, as a means to learn and potentially earn.

What I Did With An Extra 30 Minutes Each Day

I have spent 3 months rising earlier and found these 5 benefits

Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash

3 months ago, I took the decision to get up 30 minutes earlier every day, but with the clear challenge that I would do something with it. What I discovered in terms of how easy it was and how many things have benefited as a result, has genuinely shocked me.

I was not exactly a lazy morning person. I’m usually up around 6.15 and will exercise, get the kids organised for the day, empty the dishwasher etc…

I’m probably what people call a morning person.

But I’d read so many articles about how successful people get up and start succeeding straight away, I wondered what I could do with an undisturbed extra 30 minutes a day.

Peace and Quiet

The key to the success of this project is seclusion. Due to Lockdown, I share an office with my wife and I’m the chief home school teacher in our house. So my free time is minimal and my quiet time even rarer.

By getting up at 5.45, no one else in my house has moved. It’s 100% Garry time. It means, whatever I decide to do with my extra 30 minutes, it’s mine and I have no excuses. I cannot blame the kids needing help, no clients are going to be emailing me, I have no Zoom calls arranged and my wife won’t be chatting away to colleagues.

As a result, I made myself disciplined and focused. Before I share the five things that have benefitted, let me highlight the two things I had to master.

  1. Always go to bed knowing what I’m doing with my 30 minutes. I never get up and decide in the morning. If you do that, you waste 5–10 minutes of your morning. Focus is key
  2. No multi-tasking. I don’t believe in it. If I want to achieve 2 things in the 30 minutes, then I start one, finish it. Then start the next one. Multi-tasking is a mug's game, you just waste time switching from one task to the next

What follows are the 5 main benefits I’ve found since I started the project…

1. LinkedIn Engagement

Ten minutes, at least 3 days per week, has been dedicated to LinkedIn. I don’t check my notifications, messages or connection requests, I simply go through my main feed and find good articles to comment on. LinkedIn is about engagement, the algorithm cares more about you engaging in other peoples content than your own.

So I spend 10 minutes and find anywhere from 2 to 5 decent posts that I can comment on, share if I think that will help my connection or boost it to be seen by my network. I focus on things that are relevant, my network won’t thank me for sharing rubbish with them.

After just two weeks of doing this, my own posts (which I never do in the 30 minutes) were starting to get seen my THREE TIMES as many people. The likes were tenfold and people were commenting on posts. This is all down to spending just 10 minutes in the morning looking through my feed and commenting on relevant and interesting articles.

Photo by Chris Curry on Unsplash

2. Increased Exercise

Twice a week I’ve taken 15 minutes from my new slot and added it to my exercise routine. I work out at least three times during the week, so on two of those, I’ve increased my 35 minute HIIT workout into 50 minutes, adding some weights into the routine.

This is possibly my favourite use of this extra time. I have loved getting the weights out again and exercising always makes me feel good physically and mentally. I genuinely believe I work better during the days that start with a workout.

The great thing about having this extra time, it can be put to use on new things or just improve the things you are already doing — you have control over that.

3. Super Charge My Writing

The chief reason I started this all. I watched a webinar a while back from Tom Kuegler where he stated that in 30 minutes a day you could write 3–5 articles a week and that would revolutionise your writing.

I always tell people I don’t believe I will ever be just a writer. I love the variety of other roles I do. But I do want to make more of my writing. It is an ambition to earn a better living from it. Without a doubt, every good article on the subject says you get better and increase your reach by writing more. So writing was always going to be part of my new 30 minutes.

I use this bonus morning time to scratch out the article. Take an idea I have and put in the structure and start colouring that in. I don’t try and write the full article, I won’t write the first half or a whole section, in instead I try and spec out the whole article, then complete it later in the day.

For me, getting started on an article was always the hardest part of the writing process. I have a bank of ideas and once the idea has been started, I’m pretty good at completing it. It’s just taking the idea and getting going I struggled with.

In the morning, it’s quiet, no disturbances and with my disciplined focus to these new 30 minute slots, it really helps channel my thoughts and I’ve found it great for writing.

I’ve given myself these 30 minutes, so mentally I won’t allow myself to waste it by procrastinating or second-guessing an idea

By Maximumm

4. King of Home Schooling

I usually spend the last 5 minutes of my morning getting ready for my duties as a teacher to my two children. It allows me enough time to ensure everything was handed in the day before, read the lessons to see if any printing is needed, tidy the desks and check they have everything they need so the disruptions to my day are kept to a minimum — this one activity potentially saves me an hour of distracting questions later on.

5. Grow a Business — Sort Of!

Ok, so this is slightly cheating as I have not built an entire business in those 30-minute slots but having set up an eCommerce site using drop shipping, I take one of my daily slots to manage that business, add new designs to it and ensure that we are ranking well.

I’ve generally tried to make this my Friday job, it feels like an indulgent end to the week and really helps me get through to the weekend in a great mood. Having read an amazing article about how easy it was to create an Etsy shop using Printful, I took up the challenge and genuinely created the shop in a single day.

The aim was really to try something new (good for your mental health) and also educate myself on a subject that I know affects some of my clients. I didn’t intend to do much with it, but then people started ordering things! So when I dreamt up my 30-minute scheme, I decided I could use the time to put a little time into this side venture.

The Project Continues

As you can probably tell, I’m really pleased with the results of the project. I have therefore decided I will continue it for another 3 months, to see if I can keep the momentum going.

The positive vibes from the project have spilt over into my weekends as well. I’m finding myself writing more on Saturday mornings and by 9 am most Sundays, the cleaning is done and the kids and I are ready to go for a run. So I really would recommend this for anyone looking for a little boost or just in need of a change.

Self Improvement
Mental Health
Life Lessons
Learning
Inspiration
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