Just give me 20 minutes...

I’m writing this post whilst sat on the floor of a very busy train from Woking to London Waterloo¹.

That might not seem relevant right now, but I assure you the reason why I’m mentioning it will become readily apparent once you reach the end.

Where do you find the time?

Sometimes it feels like you never have time to get anything done. That might be a personal project, like my music or game development, or it could just be keeping up with the ironing.

When I used to open up to people about the things I did in my spare time, I often found they’d ask me how I had the time. Perhaps they were all being polite, but I got the distinct impression that they were genuinely surprised at how many different things I found time to get through outside of work. What was more, I heard something else hidden in the subtext of those words: “Why don’t I have that much free time?”

As a young, childless adult, I would often reply “Hmm, I think it’s probably because I don’t have kids yet”. Oh summer child, how blissfully ignorant I was…

Losing track of time

Like most parents, when my son was born I found myself abruptly thrust into the strange situation of being constantly occupied but never busy.

Whereas before I could easily take evening after evening to myself, grinding happily away on whatever project took my fancy, I now no longer had that luxury.

Although one has very little time to do anything when looking after a baby, there is ample time to think. Initially, I wrestled with coding problems in my head, designed game mechanics, or thought up story arcs. I would rush to get them written down on my phone or in a notebook whenever I had a free hand and a moment to spare.

But after a month of my paternity leave, it became painfully clear that my time to think far exceeded my time to actually do things - and seeing an ever-growing list of things you’d like to do but will never be able to work on feels like some kind of cruel torture as far as I’m concerned. I needed to find a way to reclaim some of my time.

Finding time when you think there is none

With a few weeks left before I started back at work, as I sat cross-legged, feeding a bottle of milk to my son, I had a realisation: I did have time, I just wasn’t using it. Or at least, I would soon.

On the first day I returned to work, I made sure to take a second laptop with me, ready-installed with everything I needed to continue with my latest game development project². I spent the crowded 25-minute train journey on the way to work sat on the floor, attempting to realise some of the ideas that had been circulating in my head for the past month and a half. I did the same on the way home. I did this every working day of the week for months.

It wasn’t easy at first - it took me a long time to become adept at quickly dropping things and getting back into them. And at the start it didn’t feel like I was making much progress. But when I looked back at what I’d managed to do even a few months later, it really felt like I’d achieved something meaningful.

The power of consistent habits

What this experience taught me, was the power of small, consistent habits.

I continue to use this approach to work on game development and learn new things on guitar. But I’ve also applied it to learning French, running my first D&D campaign and day trading. It doesn’t have to be 20 minutes semi-daily. It could be one evening or two evenings a week, or a handful over a month. The time period doesn’t matter too much - I just use 20 minutes a day to illustrate the more extreme side of things - but what does matter is consistency.

I’m certain if you think about it, you probably have 20 minutes to spare somewhere in your day. At first it’ll be a struggle, but as you become better at dropping in and out, and you get into the habit of doing it regularly, you’ll start to look back and see a lot of progress.

So if you’ve always wanted to learn an instrument, speak a new language, or exercise more regularly, just try finding 20 minutes in your day to dedicate to it³.

Anyway, I hope it comes in handy for you like it did for me. Now if you’ll excuse me, my train’s about to pull into Waterloo…