John Pasden pointed to a great post on Sinologistical Violoncellist that, among other things, talked about Jack Kerouac’s formula for improving his writing. The formula was:
24 hours per day – (time for sleep, ingestion, digestion, grooming) – (time for income generation) = time ostensibly available for writing.
Of that time available, Kerouac endeavored to use about 40% of it for writing.
There are a ton of things I like about that formula.
He kept statistics
Jack Kerouac, despite being an “incorrigible and lovable lush,” kept detailed statistics on his writing. It can be incredibly difficult to judge the success or failure of something you’re trying if you don’t keep empirical records of the attempt. I wrote previously about a spreadsheet I keep to see where I’m at in reaching my goals, and while I still recommend that, I’m increasingly turning toward process-focused goals, like Kerouac’s goal of simply writing for a certain amount of time each day.
His goal was quantified in terms that he could control
Nobody — not even great authors — can guarantee that the material they write at any given time will be any good. It’s certainly more likely that a great author will write great prose whenever he or she sits down in front of the keyboard / quill and inkwell / chisel and tortoise shell, but nothing is guaranteed. That the day has only 24 hours, though, is an absolute sure bet. If your goal is set in terms of performance, you’ll have to flex your time commitment, and for a lot of people this simply isn’t possible.
I study every morning from the time I wake up until 6:30am. This is somewhere between 120 and 0 minutes, depending on how late I sleep (my wife’s 6:30am alarm is my hard wakeup time, but I normally wake up earlier than that). I often study more than this, but if I get my 0-120 minutes in in the morning, I’m pleased with my study for the day. Everything else is just icing on the cake, and is subject to the whims of my daily schedule.
His goal wasn’t rigid
“He endeavored to use about 40% of it for writing.” And I’ll bet he didn’t beat himself up if he only used 38% of it for writing some days. Now, there’s no doubt that he was serious about writing, but there’s only a certain amount of seriousness one can maintain before it starts to rub the wrong way. A large percentage of burnout is the result of trying too damn hard. Lighten up. Take a day off here or there. It won’t kill you — in fact, it will probably make you more effective when you come back at it.
What keeps you going?
More than anything, learning a language is an exercise is patience and perseverance. All of the language-specific challenges will fall if you put in the time, but putting in the time — consistently, and for months and years at a stretch — is a challenge in and of itself. How do you manage your study time?
Related posts:
- How I study foreign languages
- Little goals on the road to fluency
- Success → Confidence → More Success
- My Cantonese tutor
- New year, same great flavor; also, directions
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Once I realized that you were waking up at 4:30 to study Chinese I couldn’t pay attention to anything else you wrote. I mean that’s a goal that is largely impossible for most people and I think you should say so/give other examples of time process-focused goals. Like for me, I do an Anki run within the first hour of work and then another after lunch, though like you I don’t worry about always staying within the lines and sometimes do more/less.
Flippin’ 4:30?! Jeezum man, you’re just like John Grisham (http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/2009/01/john-grisham.html). I gather you are not a high school or college student
Jonathan,
Before you brand me a total nutjob, please let me explain
— I don’t get up at 4:30am to study Chinese. I get up sometime between 4:30am and 6:30am full stop I use the time between when I get up and when my wife gets up at 6:30am to study. I normally wake up at around 5:30 — 4:30 is on the extreme end of the range, and doesn’t happen all that often.
I’ve woken up, naturally, without an alarm, at some time between 4 and 6 since high school (so, though I’m not a high school or college student, I did more or less the same thing when I was). It’s just the way my body is wired, I guess. After my son was born last year that wiring was reinforced, as I now have a very strong incentive to go to sleep when get goes to sleep, and wake up before he does and get stuff that needs quiet time done.
My point was carve out a period of time in your day to study, and get as much done during that time as you can, and don’t feel bad about letting what doesn’t get done slide. If lunchtime works for you, cool
For me, it’s pre-dawn.
I think I’m just jealous. I have always had a hard time going to sleep and waking up at a decent hour, though I often wish I could. Keep up the craziness.
You’re made of sterner stuff than I am. I usually roll out of bed around noon on a good day. Once upon a time, I was on a swim team and had to get up as early as you now do every day. But, within less than a week of winter break, I was staying up all night again. I’m pretty sure that if I had no external time commitments, I’d be living on a 25 or 26 hour schedule if any schedule at all.