37 Seconds – The Value of Odd Moments

Julie is a high-performing student at a private college preparatory school. Her challenging classes will allow her to enter college as a sophomore and graduate from college one year earlier. Additionally, she participates in theatre and plays in a city junior orchestra.

For many years, Julie has exemplified an organized student who plans her commitments.  Her calendar is filled with dedicated blocks of time for academic study, practicing the clarinet, and socializing with friends.

During her senior year, she faced new challenges—becoming the principal clarinetist in a junior orchestra and a playwright-director. Her responsibilities increased substantially, and she faced time famine amid her new leadership roles.

True to her values, Julie knew she had to prioritize fitness. Her family had a history of being overweight, and she aimed to break that cycle. Moreover, she observed how much more alert and productive she felt when she exercised.

Although Julie attended study hall throughout the day, it was dedicated to preparing for the school's big play. During most study halls, she primarily focused on planning and logistics to ensure efficient meetings with everyone involved.

 

A New Philosophy

As expected, her physics teacher assigned another difficult and time-consuming assignment.  Before dismissing class, he wrote one piece of advice:

Foot by foot, inch by inch, life's a cinch. 

This famous philosophy, used by Coca-Cola, is interpreted as follows: the homework assignment was not intended to be completed in one sitting but in manageable increments.  The problems aimed to test everything they had learned up to that point, with some unexpected curveballs along the way.

Looking for anything that could help, Julie decided to try it out to see if it would help her balance her commitments.

The Balancing Act Begins

Later that week, Julie was in an unusually lengthy evening rehearsal with her orchestra.  At first, she felt anxious as she navigated the balance of completing her homework and getting to bed at a reasonable hour.

"Should I stay up later and sacrifice sleep?  Should I go for speed on my homework? Would I be okay with a few incompletes?" were among a lengthy series of questions she attempted to resolve mentally.

Then, she remembered her physics teacher's mantra: Foot by foot, inch by inch, life's a cinch.

While the orchestra director focused on drilling the string section, Julie grabbed her homework from her nearby backpack to tackle a small part of the problem set. Upon initial inspection, Julie noticed an easy place to start in the homework minefield. Thanks to her decision to tackle smaller and easier parts first, she solved the problem swiftly and moved on to the next problem.

The orchestra briefly called on the wind sections, surprising Julie until the director clarified his request for the brass section, not the woodwinds.  She regained focus and made headway on the next step of the problem, despite the brass players playing a loud passage directly behind her.

As she scribbled down the final step, the orchestra director signaled everyone to play in the middle of the passage.

Julie regrouped with everyone in the rehearsal for the next half hour before the director called for an intermission. Then, Julie opened her homework again and focused on a smaller part crucial to solving a more difficult part of the problem. Elated, she finished the problem and closed her book just in time for her best friend Hannah to greet her.

Instead of feeling anxious during her social intermission, Julie started enjoying herself more. By tackling commitments in smaller chunks, she felt a sense of momentum and control. As she embraced her newfound free time, she became more engaged with her friends than usual.

When the orchestra director called for the second half of the rehearsal to begin, she felt confident that she could complete more items in shorter time frames.

Seeking Smaller Strides

As the second half of the rehearsal began, Julie discovered more small pockets of time to get ahead.  Each moment contributed, bringing her closer to completing her homework a week before it was due.  Although she did not finish everything during her odd moments at rehearsal, she completed her assignment just 25 minutes before her usual bedtime.

For the first time, Julie went to bed without worrying about her commitments for tomorrow.

Julie woke up the next day feeling energized and ready for the day ahead. As she entered school, she visited her physics teacher for review. She only needed to correct one minor error before it was due later that day.

That’s when Julie realized the power of odd moments beyond her physics homework.

She listed other areas where she could harness odd moments, such as other classwork and musical studies. When encountering difficult passages, Julie would listen to challenging sections on repeat until she could recall them passively.  

Then, she would practice those smaller segments repeatedly within a minute, starting slowly and gradually increasing the speed. Before she knew it, she was mastering her music faster than ever.

Julie noticed that using odd moments improved her overall school performance and allowed her to enjoy life more. She continued harnessing these odd moments for her play, workouts, and other demanding areas.

The year flew by, and Julie aced her final exams.  She graduated as valedictorian of her class and made fond memories with many friends.  She discussed taking advantage of odd moments in her speech, which nodded to her physics teacher.  Her colleagues gave her a standing ovation for her powerful speech.

Following high school, Julie received a full scholarship to her first-choice university to study physics.  She continued to apply the inch-by-inch philosophy to her studies and participated in the arts for fun.

Seconds Add Up

Julie recognized the value of odd moments and made them count.  While she had to adjust to switching gears, she recognized that we have the same amount of time available each day: 24 hours, 1440 minutes, and 86,400 seconds. 

During her senior year, Julie changed her mindset from requiring large amounts of time to begin essential tasks to utilizing quick methods to gain momentum in seconds. Although there were occasions when she required longer periods, those were more the exception than the rule.

Those who regularly use time management techniques tend to schedule their days in 30 to 60-minute increments.  Some people believe it's better to focus on a few tasks for a solid 1 to 2 hours a day, while others use 5-10 minute blocks due to the nature of their work.

Let's analyze further breakdowns.  Given that we should be sleeping at least 8 hours a day, this is how many time slots we have when we dissect our time periods further:

·       30 minutes – 32 slots per day

·       20 minutes – 48 slots per day

·       15 minutes – 64 slots per day

·       12 minutes – 70 slots per day

·       10 minutes – 96 slots per day

·       5 minutes – 192 slots per day

From our own experiences, we know that not every engagement in our day fits neatly into these segments. Some activities require more time than others, while others require only a handful of seconds. 

For example, when writing pieces of content, I carve out 10-minute segments to do the following once I have an idea:

1. Craft the headers

2. Write the outline

3. Use speech-to-text to write (HUGE TIME SAVER!)

4. Listen to my writing via Speechify

5. Refine and wordsmith via Grammarly

6. Stage my writing for publishing

Having a strong template and fluid process broken down into smaller stages is incredibly liberating. It works for 99% of my projects. The other 1% are handled on a case-by-case basis when extras are required, such as producing visual aids.

The Greatest Myth With Time

It's easy to mistake the correlation between an activity’s importance and the time spent on it.  Naturally, we invest in the most critical activities while eliminating mind-numbing activities.

We want to believe that more significant pursuits deserve more of our time.  However, this may not always be the case.  There are several reasons why we think that important activities require substantial amounts of time:

• When switching activities, pain signals are tied to the transition.

• We are conditioned to view our activities hourly, particularly in the context of our professional careers.

  
  

Naturally, it's easier to focus on one large item when it's the only item. The problem stems from unforeseen little interruptions, requiring us to change gears to address them.

If we expect uninterrupted focus and then battle dozens of interruptions in a day, our days are riddled with false starts, and we only achieve a fraction of what we set out to do.

However, with an odd-moments mindset, we understand that interruptions can happen anytime.  We have a lot going on, so we're mentally prepared to adjust as needed to get through the day. The pain points are expected and embraced as part of our daily grind.

Rather than spending large chunks of time on these primary pursuits, we now limit our time for each endeavor.  Consequently, we are more focused on that moment than if we had an hour.

I'm sorry, Abe Lincoln, but six hours should not be spent sharpening an axe to chop down a tree.

5 Techniques To Harness Odd Moments 

Many techniques are available that can work wonders for our individual needs. Naturally, some of the tools listed will be more relevant than others. Readers are encouraged to create their own techniques that work for them.

Here are some of the techniques I've harnessed that have accelerated my progress in nearly all endeavors:

1 – Create An Odds & Ends List

Odds-And-Ends Lists (OELs) are a great way to plan what to do with unexpected odd moments. Typically, these items take 2-5 minutes to complete, but everyone has a different threshold for how much time constitutes an odd moment.

Personally, I like using Microsoft To-Do for my OELs because they're very easy to categorize, but pen and paper on sticky notes work just as well.  The real question is: What works best for you?

2 – Use A Manual Stopwatch

A manual stopwatch is an excellent tool for timing unique moments.  Smartphones and smartwatches can perform the same function, but an analog watch provides one advantage that smart devices typically lack: focus.

When the watch is started, it is easy to feel the burst of energy that propels us to complete the task in the small window of time. To increase a sense of urgency, use a countdown method to wind down the timer to zero instead of a lap method.

For those feeling more adventurous, try using an odd amount of time to complete a task, such as a 23-second challenge, a 3-minute challenge, or some other unusual time interval.

3 – Go For Volume, NOT Quality

It's easy to seek perfection when doing things. The idea of getting it done right the first time, so we don't have to go back, has echoed in the halls of many schools.

However, reality doesn't operate that way.  My writing and other skills don’t either.  The perfect method is rarely available or at the tip of our tongues.  Waiting for it to emerge is the greatest source of chronological entropy.

When we get started, we should expect not to have the best method available. However, we should expect to adjust the course as we acquire better tools on our journeys.  The key is to create momentum and continually adjust toward our goal.

Therefore, we should aim for volume.  Volume, volume, volume.  Quality is subjective.  Keep producing and churning out our work as much as possible.

When the time comes, we edit by sculpting our work. In practice, eliminating excess rather than adding additional items is much easier. As we sift through our work and make it nice and lean, the diamonds in the rough will appear right before our eyes.

4 – Set Up Systems That Make It Easy

It's challenging to make use of odd moments if we don't know how to utilize them.  While flailing about may appear to be a temporary strategy, it can foster a misleading sense of achievement when we spend our odd moments on unproductive tasks.

Therefore, it's best to have a system that harnesses odd moments. We don't need to code new software to achieve this, as excellent solutions are already available that we must learn to use effectively. It's all about creating a workflow that works for us.

Depending on the line of work, it may make more sense to have a digital, analog, or mixed system for harnessing odd moms. I strongly advocate for a mix, as both provide advantages over one another and create a more complete picture.

For writing, I simply use an iPad with LTE enabled, a Magic Keyboard, AirPods, and Microsoft OneNote. While AirPods are great for listening to music or utilizing noise cancellation to focus, they truly excel when using speech-to-text, as I'm doing now.  OneNote is excellent for writing because it syncs seamlessly across all my devices (iOS, Android, and Windows).

Additionally, I use this setup for other purposes, such as editing photos on Lightroom Mobile, making basic beats on Logic Pro, working on basic coding projects, and directly accessing my codebase on GitHub.

Everyone will have a system that works for them, depending on their line of work. Trial and error are required to find what works best, but once it's found, odd moments become all the sweeter.

5 – Practice & Set Reminders

Odd moments are not occasional; they occur daily.  There's no reason to expect that odd moments won’t happen to us.  Even if there are no gaps in the schedule, interruptions will prevent us from executing everything precisely as planned. Therefore, harnessing our odd moments serves as a perfect plan B.

However, I've found it more productive to intentionally schedule 30 minutes of odds and ends. Here, I let myself go wild as I randomly attack minor tasks that require a few minutes. It's almost like a speed run—how much odd stuff can I get off my mind in these 30 minutes?

Unintentionally, I have discovered a side benefit to scheduling blocks of odd moments: they have become automatic.  Now, when I encounter unexpected downtime on a day when I know I need to get things done, my odd moments come in and fill the void. While it's not ideal to engage in them, it certainly beats being stalled and waiting for something else.

Thus, we should treat harnessing odd moments like a muscle and carve out regular time for it. We must allow ourselves to pursue them by scheduling time and setting reminders. It may feel strange at first, but that's how odd moments work, after all.

Start Harnessing Odd Moments Now

Harnessing odd moments is a skill that requires time to develop.  As Julie demonstrated, the initial adjustment can be challenging, but the results of this effort are readily apparent in accomplishing tasks.

When we're used to our routines of simply scheduling our time, it can feel strange to try being more spontaneous by embracing unexpected moments.  Over time, it becomes more natural to seize those unusual moments that would otherwise add up to hours of wasted time.

There are more techniques for harnessing these odd moments. It's up to us to do our research and devise the techniques that work best for us.

Only a few items require extensive undisturbed time to complete. When necessary, we should establish guardrails to deter as many interruptions as possible. Otherwise, we should expect unexpected turns in our day, which we can now harness.

What techniques will you use to harness the power of odd moments?