No Drugs, No Coffee, Just Sleep & Hard Work
Finishing UC Berkeley in Two Calendar Years and Still Finding Time to Relax, Rest, and Renew my body each day. It’s so simple, everyone can do it.
When I was twenty years old I walked into the stadium at Cal and it hit me that I had done what I only dreamed could have been poissible. I had not only been accepted to one of the top Universities in the United States, but also completed a total of 120 Units in just two calendar years. I was awe struck at the accomplishment I had achieved, but soon would begin to be hit by a thousand different questions from everyone I knew.
Are you on drugs? Did you live on Coffee? Do you ever sleep? What’s your secret? You’re a genius right. You have magical powers, don’t you? Did you leave your room? What about dinner? Do you have friends? Are you like a freak? No way…What a liar…You must have had like a thousand AP credits?
These are just a few of the “appropriate” questions that I received from friends, past teachers, family, and everyone I met and continue to meet. It dawned on me that while everyone believed I had done something special to graduate in such a fast and unorthodox time, the truth of the matter was that it was good scheduling and a passion for what I was doing. (In no way though am I saying it didn’t take a lot of time, energy, and hard work though).
Although I’ve answered the question for many people many a time the simple fact of the matter is this. I did not use drugs, not now not ever, I never drink coffee (ironic since I own a Coffee Business), I didn’t pay anyone off, I’m far from a genius, I don’t have magical powers, I have tons of friends, I’ve been to hundreds of school and other events, I had no AP Credits at all, I’m not a freak, I actually took Friday’s off (no classes scheduled), and most importantly I get 10 hours of sleep everyday. Throughout my two years though I learned these five things that helped me to do everything and anything I wanted, and at the same time graduate on time.
- Our Phones are the Ultimate Time Wasters in the World. No matter whether I was in class, in my dorm, in an apartment, at the library, at lunch, eating dinner, or walking around campus my phone would always be buzzing. Messages, updates, Facebook posts, Instagram Stories, YouTube alerts, and so much more. Today, we’re blessed with the ability to know exactly how much time we spend on our iPhones because of the “Usage Tracker,” but it wasn’t always a feature. Instead I did it the old fashion way, and started to write down every time I picked up my phone and how much time I spent on it. I realized that their were more than two-three hours a day where I was starring at just this ONE screen. (Let’s not talk about my computer and iPad right now). Those minutes became the foundation of really saving time. I decided that whenever I would be studying or working on a project, my phone would be shut down. It allowed me to focus on the assignment, get it done, and then have plenty of time to move on. So shut your phone down while you’re doing something, and you’ll be surprised how fast things suddenly get accomplished.
- The 20–10–15–15 minute rule. This is something I adapted and it worked really well for me. Instead of sitting around and trying to finish huge amounts of work in one stretch of time I decided that I would devote 20 minutes to written or active work, 10 minutes on reading something, 15 minutes counting the holes in the ceiling tiles (if you don’t have these just take 15 minutes and do anything that requires no effort), and another 15 minutes actively working. By cutting around the time you’re able to feel like you’re doing a thousand things, and are thus never get bored, annoyed, or tired of what you have to get done.
- An hour for the gym, an hour for TV, and an hour for your friends/family. Everyone burns themselves out and by the end of the week they need to crash on the sofa and spend the weekend doing nothing. Sorry, but that just doesn’t work for me and really leaves you wasting so much valuable time. To combat this I decided that each day I’d spend at least an hour at the gym, an hour watching TV (I love TV and watch too much of it), and an hour with my friend / family. I was able to stop the chaos around me in these times, refresh myself, and start each day as if I’d just come off a three day weekend.
- Stop being a perfectionist. I love to make sure things are always perfect, but at the end of the day, nothing will be perfect. Understanding this saved me time that I could not even count because constantly redoing, changing, and fixing things was costing me hours.
- Sleep. The most important thing for being productive is to get sleep and rest, and not matter what you think of the other four things I’ve said make sure you love this one. Sleep is the most productive time I’ve ever had both in school and now in life. If you’re unable to get up, do things, and be your 100% self each and every day, you’ve already wasted hundreds of hours each day. So stop staying up and get some sleep because in the end a 100% you will be able to accomplish hundreds of things at a high level, versus 80% or 90% you getting a few things done half-hazardly.
These are just a few of the things I learned about getting thing done, quickly, and productively at UC Berkeley. I hope you enjoyed them. If you loved them give this article a clap, and comment what you think below. I’d love to hear the thoughts of everyone, and the comments that everyone has to share.
