I is for INTERVALS

 Today I'm thinking about the concept of Interval training, where you run about and keep stopping to do small amounts of strength training. It's supposed to be super good, although as I know little and care less about the fitness industry I cannot say whether this is deserved.

Be that as it may, I have found the concept of intervals utterly invaluable in tackling any large and daunting task. E.G. studying law. Decluttering a house. Writing a novel. You set a timer of some kind for a short time - perhaps half an hour, or even less, and then you go like the clappers without looking at the clock. And, more importantly, without looking out the window, or Facebook, or the weather forecast, or really anything else unless the house is on fire or a baby is screaming.

I had great success with this when I was studying Law. In fact I really don't think I would have got through without it. I was failing Criminal Law when Robert Cilley very kindly explained about using the intervals for study. I was familiar with the concept from doing the Flylady system, but somehow I'd not expanded that to include other areas of life. And from that time, my law study took off. Oh, it was still masses of hard work, there's no getting around that. It certainly was a hobby of the 'are we having fun yet?' variety. But all the fear and doubt wemt away, and once I got my study method in place, there was a 'rinse and repeat' flavour to it. This is something I've found so often in life. Once you've devised a really good system for doing something, once you've road tested your system and adjusted it and worked out any kinks, it takes away a great deal of the more daunting aspects of things. You rely on the system, and providing there's nothing wrong with the system, and you practice it honestly, it doesn't let you down. Ever. Much of my life has been lived in the shelter of this idea.

This is me being admitted as a lawyer. Living proof of the efficacy of the interval method!

So, with writing. For the last few years I've struggled with productivity. I've written in this blog about the terrible events of 2021 that led to my total cessation of work for many months, and my slow road to recovery. Now, I'm finally getting back in the groove, and although there have been a few stumbles along the way, and a lot of supervening life events requiring more and more time to be taken off, things are finally moving. 

What enables me, a basically idle and frivolous person, to achieve this, you ask. Well, it's intervals. When I see the day stretching out before me, nine to four an impossible, uncrossable waste, like the Arctic Circle or that vile shopping mall in Doncaster, my nerve fails me and I just want to go back to bed, or stare at youtube for six hours. But if I've to work for half an hour, I can do that standing on my head, as it were. So I do that, and then I do something else, either for a few minutes or an hour or whatever, and then I go back to work for another session, and I rinse and repeat and by the end of the day, sometimes I find I've achieved a decent wordcount, and also done a number of other tasks that would otherwise have gone on being endlessly procrastinated. It's like magic - work less, get more done.

So for the next little while in my blog, I'll be going back to chronicling my working days using this method. It's a good tool, this; it keeps me honest if I have to tell how I spent my day. Wish me luck!