An hour a day of practice

For the past two weeks I kinda went back to my old strategy that involves finishing around a week's worth of work in one single day.

That means that each Monday I have to write 10 articles and create 10 design packages for Graphic River and Creative Market, which usually means 10 photo effects.

That helps me have a lot more time at my disposal throughout the week to do whatever I want.

I kinda forgot about this strategy because I kept trying new things to see if I find something better, but I have to say, focusing only on work for one single day can do wonders when it comes to the amount of things you can finish, and that can allow you to relax later in the week and take care of other productive tasks if you want to.

For example, what I managed to do for the past two weeks, is finishing a book called "The Richest Man In Babylon", which I recommend to anyone who, like me, struggles when it comes to making and, most importantly, keeping money, I finished half a course about SQL on Codecademy, I started reading small things about history, like the Library of Alexandria, or Grigori Rasputin, and a few other things.

What's most important, I realized how much of a difference one single hour of practice or learning can make.

As I said, last week I decided to start a fairly basic course on SQL on Codecademy, just to see what that programming language is about, and if I like it. I learned quite a few things in around an hour a day, and while I'm not even close to being able to use SQL without looking at all the notes I took, I can still look at some code and understand some of it.

Besides that, now that I know what SQL is about, and now that I know what it can be used for more specifically, if I'll ever need a database that could benefit from using SQL, I'll be able to kinda take that programming language and use it, even if in a basic way, to create what I want or make my life a little easier.

I already mentioned the book I finished reading, that helped me understand a lot more about making and multiplying money than I thought it will. I even had to have a small agenda next to me every time I started reading in order to take notes and make sure I'll always have a quick access to the most important ideas.

I also spent some time learning about how to make nature in Blender, and even if I don't yet know how to do it perfectly, at least I have an idea about how I could start. Plus, I started looking at a bunch of images and drawings online about specific environments in order to get an idea about what kind of small details I can include in my scene in order to make everything look more realistic.

Overall, finishing most of my work on Monday, and then planning my time for the rest of the week so I can spend around an hour focusing on each productive activity I want to take care of, helped me learn quite a lot of things and, overall, improve myself.

It's an easy habit to form, and I really recommend it. Spending one hour learning something, then another hour reading, then another hour trying to practice and get better at a skill you already know, can make a huge difference in your life, and it can boost the amount of knowledge you have in all kind of different areas.