The Two Hour Window
There’s a lot of online-guru stuff about how you have to be willing to dedicate every fibre of your being to achieve your goal.
Whilst it’s fantastic that there are guys that are willing to push it to the limit by creating their blog or spending a few hours a week in the gym and writing about it incessantly the rest of the time, it’s sad for the rest of the poor internet readers who might have other stuff to do that takes up their time.
This article is good news for people that don’t feel that they can live like a motivational poster, committing 24/7/365 to their goal.
A couple of hours a day will help you, and I’ll set out why now.
Set Aside A Two Hour Window For Your Life
This is a site about writing and business, so that’s where I’ll go with the examples, but you can apply this to anything that needs fixing in your life:
- Your fitness
- Your relationships
- Business/career
- Your Education
- Your hobbies
Essentially, to guarantee some level of success in whatever goal you’re seeking, an efficient way to achieve this is to give yourself a two hour window every day.
Why Is This Better Than Other Techniques?
I’ve written about the Pomodoro Method before. Essentially, you work for twenty-five minutes, break for five minutes and then repeat the process. Or, you can use my variation. This is a great method to heighten your productivity.
So why don’t I just suggest that again?
Because Pomodoro works for extending the amount of time that you can spend on a project. If you have eight hours a day, every day, then using the Pomodoro Method will allow you to work longer hours than you would be able to otherwise.
Working for eight hours straight is nigh-on impossible, and so scheduling breaks allows you to relax, refocus and then keep going.
It’s not so great for when you’re limited in your time.
You might have a new baby, a full-time job or a sick pet dog or something, and those things will need to be prioritised over your goal, be that fitness, writing or whatever.
Pomodoro Techniques aren’t great for this type of thing because if you’ve only got an hour or two, you don’t want to be losing the break time in exchange for your concentration, which won’t run out if you’re working to an hour or two a day anyway.
Instead, you should set aside that two hour window – it doesn’t even necessarily need to be two hours consecutively (though that’s helpful) to get some work done.
When Can You Fit Two Hours In If You’re Busy?
When you are busy, it seems like the last thing you can do is pencil in a couple of hours to work on a goal.
That’s almost always an illusion. You just have to be creative and willing to put the time in.
I’d recommend – depending on whether you’re a night owl or a morning person – staying up later, getting up earlier or a combination of the two.
However, if you can’t do that (some people have families to feed and two hour commutes) then you can get creative.
The best way to work while you don’t have time to work is to get yourself a dictation app and record yourself speaking into it.
I use a free app called Smart Voice Recorder and I can dictate all my ideas, to-do lists and whatever else. You can do this while you’re commuting (pay attention to the road while you’re driving though!) or while you’re doing housework.
If you’re a writer, you can use dictation software to transcribe those words into a word processor later – although I have had little success with this due to accuracy.
If your goal isn’t work related, then you can probably still fit it in… it’s hard to describe how to fit any goal in.
Remember, the goal is two hours of work on your goal – preferably un-distracted, but if not, then do your best.
What Can You Achieve In Two-Hours?
You can achieve a huge amount in two hours – more than you think.
People tend to get caught up in one of two camps, and sometimes both:
- They overestimate what they can do in a short time
- They underestimate what they can do in a long time
Two hours is pretty good as far as work sessions go. It’s not so long that you’ll completely fatigue yourself, but it’s not too short that you can’t get anything completed.
Let’s take writing as an example.
If you’re an average speed typist and you’ve got some sort of a plan, then you can write 1000 words in an hour. There’s no doubt about it. If you can’t, then practice until you can.
2,000 words a day is a short novel in just under a month.
For the copywriters among you, the Niche Site Challenge is a two-hour window challenge.
You can easily write sales letters in two hours or you could install a website n well-under that time.
If your goal is fitness related, then you need a lot less than two hours a day. Take it anyway.
I’ll conclude here by telling you to write your own goals out and examples of things that you can achieve in two hours a day – not any less, not any more. You’ll probably surprise yourself.
Final Thoughts
Two hours a day is a lot – but not too much.
It’s getting up at six instead of eight or going to bed at midnight instead of ten p.m.
In that two hours, you can achieve a huge amount. It’s also fantastic for your psyche to know that whatever else happens in a day, you can say you’ve done something that’ll get you towards your goal.
Sure, we can all optimise and do more productive things, but most people never spend that much time on their dreams and visions.
If you do, you’ll be happier and more successful than them already, and –competition aside – you’ll feel better within yourself.