Add an extra hour

Just one more hour of practice can make a big difference

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to ramp up the amount of time
you spend on something that matters to you. Add one

(00:23):
more hour. You will become better at just about anything
by doing more of it. Not perfect by any means,
but better, and in many cases the improvement won't be small.
So when I first started blogging many years ago, it

(00:45):
wasn't always easy to come up with an idea and
write a few hundred words about it in a short
period of time. But I kept doing it. I kept
doing a lot of it. Instead of doing the bare
minimum one to two posts per week that people suggested
at the time, I spent another hour or so per

(01:05):
week on it and posted about four times per week. Then,
at some point a few years later, I took a
gig that involved writing quick pieces about newsy topics. I
was amazed at how quickly I could crank out a
few hundred words. It seems that writing two hundred five

(01:27):
hundred word posts per year makes it easy to write
five hundred words on command. Seems straightforward, right, And yet
much of the time when we are trying to get
better at something, we overlook an obvious tactic, which is
to start doing more of whatever it is we are

(01:48):
aiming to improve at. Even just an extra hour a
week can make a big difference. If you are a
normal speed runner and you want to be a faster runner,
there are various types of speed work you can do,
and probably some strength training and such that will help.

(02:09):
But if you were running fifteen miles a week and
you work up to running twenty one miles a week
by running six more ten minute miles, so that's another hour,
you will probably start to get faster just through sheer repetition.
Your body will figure out ways to move more efficiently,

(02:32):
and your aerobic capacity will increase. I would like to
improve as a singer. I have thought about taking voice lessons,
and I know that would be helpful because I've done
it in the past. But I have also realized that
if I practice various vocal exercises and breathing exercises and

(02:55):
simple songs for another hour each week beyond my choir practices,
that will help too. I can add an extra hour
of practice. Whether I find the right teacher and work
that into my schedule or not. Now, none of this
is meant to diminish the importance of smart practice or

(03:17):
seeking the advice of professionals. But volume itself is a
pretty efficient teacher, and given that most of us aren't
devoting forty hours a week to our various hobbies or
even to the professional skills we'd like to improve at,
an extra hour can be a lot. One hour out

(03:40):
of the eight hours we all have each week isn't much,
but spending an extra hour each week learning a foreign
language would get you to fluency much faster. Spending an
hour a week speaking in front of people would make
you a good public speaker pretty quickly. O Spending an

(04:01):
extra hour practicing a musical instrument would likewise make learning
difficult music feel far more doable. We often have grand
designs for getting better at things, and those are fine,
but if it is taking a long time to bring
those plans to fruition, start with just adding an hour

(04:25):
to your schedule. See how it goes. My guess is
that the improvements won't be small, and that just might
motivate you to take the next step. In the meantime,
this is Laura, Thanks for listening, and here's to making

(04:47):
the most of our time. Hey everybody, I'd love to
hear from you. You can send me your tips, your
question sins, or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter,
Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod that's B the

(05:09):
number four, then breakfast p o D. You can also
shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcasts at i
heeart media dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out
with all the letters. Thanks so much. Should I look
forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production

(05:30):
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.