layout: post

title: Making the Time for Deliberate Practice

categories:

- blog

Matt Swanson's post on [I Don't Have Time](http://mdswanson.com/blog/2012/10/28/i-dont-have-time.html) is a great pairing to the mental roadblocks you put in your path to build "career capital" (term borrowed from _[So Good They Can't Ignore You](http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-ebook/dp/B0076DDBJ6)_ by Cal Newport, you should *really* read it).

I want to add onto Matt's thoughts and share some of the things that I have done to _make the time_ for deliberate practice.

* For a week, I started [waking up at 5AM](http://www.insertimg.com/2013/06/19/my-5am/)

> I was really productive during that time, but just didn't keep with it

* I started using [Swift Player](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/swift-player-speed-up-video/id545216639?mt=8) for iOS, [HTML5 Video for YouTube](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/html5-video-for-youtube/dolajcekhnohkpncmhgledbmndjpblei?hl=en) in Chrome, and 3X speed in [Downcast](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/downcast/id393858566?mt=8) for podcasts to reduce the time it took for me to consume educational / inspirational content

* I bring a mini project to work on at my local [OpenHack](http://openhack.github.io/)

* I work on side projects at the same time and where my wife works on hers

* I have put a pause on most of my Hulu+ and Netflix viewing (made easier since it is the summer time and few new shows are on)

* I have reduced the number of movies I watch in theatres, and even watched _[Wreck-It Ralph](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772341/)_ at 1.5x with [VLC](http://www.videolan.org/)

* I have stopped playing Xbox 360

These are just some of the things that I have done to make time for deliberate practice. They work for me.