Getting up early in the morning is a difficult thing for me. I keep an alarm, when it goes of like many i just switch it off and go back to sleep. I then was keeping two, three alarms, nothing really worked. Then, i started to break the action of getting up. It was like a huge inertia to move my 70kg body out of the bed into the living room. So, I started to hack my mind and would like to just wiggle my toes. Then gradually move one leg away from the bed towards the floor, followed by the other leg. I just didnt tell my mind to get up out of the bed which is a big task, i am just asking it to do series of small task that lead to that. Then, roll my body to the side, keep my hands for support and then get up. Then, take a series of steps towards restroom and splash some water on the face. Then, only mind my comes out of the sleep and really wakes up. It is not difficult to go back to sleep. Yeah i know, this is funny.
But, it is a simple trick that you follow to make your mind to difficult things. When you get the hang of it far more difficult things can be accomplished by you using this. Ever think of how much Elon Musk has accomplished in his life. He has lot of companies and works like crazy. How can he pull this off? doesn't his mind just shut down ?
I was recently reading his biography and have watched many of his interviews and see some glimpse of him using this method. He breaks down his activities into 5 mins block. The mental resistance to do a 5 mins activity is nothing compared to 5 hour activity. But, you can just line up a series of 5 mins activities as you go and not feel exhausted at the end. You would feel very much energetic. I would keep like a 5 min countdown timer, it feels really great to work, like you are on a exciting hunt or something. I use this clock countdown timer and keep it in separate browser and small in the side, so that the ticking yellow pie is visible. Sometimes, for longer deep work, its distracting, so it can be extended. like in the pomodoro 30 to 50 mins
I always loved to solve a rubiks cube all my life. What i would try is to solve it at once and to learn everything and to do it at once. But life and mind doesn't work that way. Then, i broke down on learning to solve the rubiks cube. I tried solving it layer by layer (the famous CFOP method). There are three layers. So, i spent learning to solve the first layer, then second and finally the third (hardest). After solving the entire cube i was so happy and excited, this is not possible without this incremental learning and series of atomic activities. Then, i found lot of tricks to solve it faster. Initially, it took around 4 hrs to solve it, now it takes just 20mins. The world record is 3-4 seconds. Just imagine how much incrementally they would have acted and won to get to that level.
The feel good factor this breaking big into small chuck of activities gives us immediate sense of accomplishment that we can get by successfully completing each of the 5 mins task. This will keep you motivated to go on and build your momentum till you reach your goal. It is just that getting into the water is difficult, then we will be immersed in work and it just flows. Hope this was useful for you . Please do comment on what situation your would like to use it in your life and be benefited.
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