If there is one thing
that we productivity guru, rockstar,
mogul ninja samurais love to go on and on about
it is our schedules,
how utterly customized and tailored they are
towards our optimal working conditions,
our chrono type, and our secret wow rating addictions.
But every single time we write another blog post
or make another video about our scheduling hacks
I know there are many of you out there
who are simply tearing your hair out
at how unhelpful they are for you
because you are dealing with an inconsistent
and chaotic schedule that is out of your control.
Whether its due to your class schedule or a job
you simply don't have time for a three hour morning routines
with vipassana meditations
or two hour forest bathing sessions
in the middle of the workday
just like nothing of consistently cooking dinner
on a regular basis or getting to the gym
as many times a week as you want.
So what can be done for people in this situation?
What do you do if you have an inconsistent chaotic schedule
that seems to hamper the development of new habits
and block your progression towards your goals?
Well I've actually got a few suggestions
for you in this video today
because I have been in this situation in the past.
Yes now as an entrepreneur I'm able to set my own schedule
but that wasn't always the case.
All throughout high school I had part time jobs
at grocery stores and Target and lots of other places
where my manager basically set my schedule
I had pretty much no say in the matter
and even in college I worked at a job
where I had different hours almost every single week.
So from those experiences
as well as a lot of online research
that I did in preparation for this video
I wanna give you some suggestions
for making the most of an inconsistent schedule
and still making progress on your goals despite it.
And the first thing that I wanna share here
is a lesson I learned very early on
when I started my first job in college
at the campus IT center
which was that I had to get my schedule
into my own personal calendar
as soon as I could possibly could.
See my first job in college
was working at the tech support center
answering calls and helping people fix their computers.
- Hello IT have you tried turning this off and on again?
(laughing)
- And the cool thing about that job
was that you could basically choose
your own hours every single week,
but there was a catch,
every week at a specific day and a specific time
a giant calendar of hours slots would become open
to every employee in the company
which means that it was a first come first serve thing,
if you were there first
you basically had the best pick of hours
you could get exactly what you wanted
but if you were there even say five minutes late sometimes
you could be looking at slim pickings.
And there were certainly some weeks
early on on my first semester at that job
before I really learned how important it was
to get there early where this happened to me.
So after a few harsh weeks trying to fill my hour quota
with a bunch of random half an hour sessions
here and there between classes
I learned two important lessons.
Number one, be sitting at that calendar
refreshing it over and over and over again
right when those hours opened.
And number two
which is the lesson I'm gonna share here
the moment I understood what my schedule was
on that work calendar
I needed to transfer over to my Google calendar
my personal calendar.
Now you know this is important for knowing
when you're supposed to go to work
but this is also important
for being able to develop healthy habits
and work on your independent projects as well.
What we're trying to avoid here is derailment,
derailing on your goals,
derailing on your habits
and yes ultimately the thing
that's going to cause this to happen
is a lack of motivation and a lack of self discipline
but the catalyst for those things
can often be that inconsistent schedule
we kind of run on schedules
we run on consistency
and when external factors
are really kind of destroying that for us
it can be hard to actually self-regulate.
So the way that I combated that
and the way that I lessened its impact on my life
was by getting very good
at managing my own personal schedule
and getting things into my calendar as early as possible.
What this did was allow me to sit down
at the beginning of the week
and look at my calendar from a birds eye view.
Yes it was an inconsistent schedule
but I was able to identify lots of little blocks of time
that were free to me.
So maybe I couldn't say go to the gym every single morning
or have time to cook dinner at the same time
every single night,
but I could look and say
all right I've got Monday and Wednesday free
so I'm going to schedule gym time during those free blocks.
Tuesday mornings take up my work in class
but I do have a tiny block Tuesday afternoon free
so maybe I'll go for a run then.
And what I found over the years
is that when I plan things in advance
I feel sort of beholden to my past self
so it's more likely that I'm going to actually do them.
It's definetly not foolproof
it's not about a combat boot wearing fairy
about ready to kick me in the butt
if I don't do what I set up to do
but it's much better than trying to decide
in the moment that I'm going to do something
because I've got a couple of free hours.
So when you have an inconsistent schedule
make sure you're getting things into your personal calendar
as early as you possibly can
and then sitting down once a week over viewing your calendar
and picking up those free hours
that aren't already taken up by something
and deciding what you're going to do with them
ahead of time.
Now one thing that I fortunately didn't have to deal with
during my years of part-time job work
was night shift work,
having an inconsistent sleep schedule dictated by my job
but I know that this is something
that a lot of people do deal with
including a couple of friends of mine who work at a hospital
so I wanted to include a few tips
for if you're in this situation as well.
First and foremost if the consistency of your sleep
is under attack by an inconsistent schedule
then what you need to prioritize getting is enough sleep.
You may not be able to get it
at the same time every single night
but you can at least make sure you're getting enough.
Now one of the things that can really hamper this goal
for a lot of shift workers
is the fact that they're trying to get sleep during the day
and they're under assault by light
coming in through their windows,
by noise being made by the roommates
or T-Rex's in the other room if you work at Jurassic Park,
all kinds of stuff.
So what do you do in that situation?
Well tip number one
you get what I have hanging right over there in this studio,
a pair of good block out curtains.
See your body circadian rhythm
the synchronization with the day and night schedule
and part of the biological process that regulates your sleep
is heavily influenced by the amount of light
that you are perceiving.
To give you a really quick refresher
from 9th grade Biology class,
in your eye you have in addition to cones and rods
that sense things like detail and color and movement
something called a photosensitive retinal ganglion cells
and these cells perceive light
and send signals to a part of the brain
called the suprachiasmatic nucleus.
Now this little piece of brain hardware
sends instructions to other parts of the body
which regulate the production of hormones
like melatonin and cortisol
and these affect your sleep and your sleep drive.
So long story short
if you have a bunch of light coming in through your window
where you're trying to get some sleep
because it's 7:00 a.m. and you just got done with the shift
you're gonna have a harder time actually falling asleep
your body doesn't think it's time for sleep.
But if you have a pair of block out curtains
then that basically solves the problem,
your room is dark
and your body can think that it's nighttime.
Of course light isn't the only problem you have to deal with
if you're trying to sleep during the day,
because you also have to contend with noise
whether it's your roommates in the other room
or literally the band dragging force
if you are a particular sleepy roadie.
So the deal with all that noise
make an investment in a good pair of earplugs
and by investment I mean like $2.00
because earplugs are super cheap.
Now one thing that I do wanna mention
before we move on from this issue
of dealing with your sleep schedule
is that you could actually change that sleep schedule.
Most people sleep what's called a monophasic sleep schedule
which means they sleep in one long
seven to eight hour block of time each night,
but there are also polyphasic sleep schedules.
Now a lot of these are ineffective
and result in not sleeping enough hours total
but the one that I wanna suggest here which can be effective
is the simple biphasic sleep schedule.
This is a schedule where you have a four to five hour
core block of sleep each night
followed by a two to three hour longer nap
during the middle of the day or at some other time.
And there was actually a NASA funded study
that looked at the effectiveness of this sleep schedule
for astronauts and they came to the conclusion that
split sleep schedules are feasible
and can be used to enhance the flexibility
of sleep work schedules for space operations
involving restricted nocturnal sleep
due to mission critical task scheduling.
(exhaling loudly)
Damn run on sentences.
It goes on to say that these results
are generally applicable to any continuous
industrial operation that involves sleep restriction,
night operations and shift work.
So given those results
this might be something to look into
if you don't have time for a monophasic schedule.
Now one thing to know is all the tips we've gone over so far
are meant to help you deal with a chaotic schedule
but ultimately the goal should be to actually escape it.
Yes for people with certain career goals
like EMTs or surgeons
an inconsistent schedule might just come with the territory
but for most of us having a chaotic schedule
is just kind of part of paying our dues,
it's a byproduct of the jobs and obligations
we have to take on moreover in school
or otherwise climb up the ladder.
So if you eventually wanna have
a more consistent and manageable schedule
and be able to have those three hour morning routines
then be on lookout for jobs and opportunities
that will get you closer to it
or negotiate with your manager at your current job
once you've proven yourself
to see if you can start moving
towards more consistent hours there,
and of course use some of your free time
to bolster your career skills
so you can put yourself in a better negotiating position.
Work on your soft skills like communication, organization,
but also work at becoming a better creative problem solver
someone who can tackle
the more challenging complex problems
that every business deals with.
And if you wanna research
so you can use this to start building
those problem solving abilities check out Brilliant.
Brilliant is a math and science learning tool
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And in addition to being able to learn
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So to start learning for free
head it over to brilliant.org/thomasfrank
and if you're one of the first 83 people
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you're also gonna get 20% off
your annual premium subscription.
Wanna give a big thanks to Brilliant
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