One full example of the “24/7 Strategy”

The purpose of the 24/7 Strategy is to speed up skill development and progress. How?

• By turning an idea into an action.
• By forcing you to start when you would otherwise wait.
• By exchanging time spent consuming for time spent doing.
• By identifying priority areas to install new standards and skills.
• By evaluating your abilities against reality, not fantasy.

Here is an example of how it might look:

You listen to an episode of “The Huberman Lab” podcast about sleep on your Monday morning drive to work. A few suggestions in the episode stand out because of how different they are from your patterns.

When you park your car at work, before you get out, you make a note in your phone while it’s fresh in your mind. You type three bullets to review later that night:

• Consistent bedtime - when?
• Blackout the bedroom - how?
• Minimize digital light two hours before bed - do what instead?

When you get home after work, you pull up the note and review your bullets. You spend 15-30 minutes deciding how to apply the principles in your bullets. You decide that starting on Wednesday, for the next 14 days, you will:

• Get in bed by 9:30 pm and lights out by 10:00 pm at least 10 of the next 14 days.
• Put blackout curtains in your room. Get cheaper paper curtains first because you can do it immediately. Remove or turn off all light sources in your room, especially the TV.
• Set your phone to “Do not disturb” automatically starting at 8 pm. Instead, talk with someone in your house, read a book, write in a journal, take a walk, practice piano, stretch, or sit and reflect.

You make all those decisions on Monday night. Give yourself Tuesday to get set with what you need. In this example, it’s only changing one phone setting, putting up blackout curtains, and removing light sources from your room. On Wednesday, you’re ready to start and do it for the next 14 days.

That’s one example of how to use the 24/7 Strategy. Two final insights for you before you go:

1. Hesitance to use the 24/7 Strategy indicates why you need to use the 24/7 Strategy. If you feel an internal resistance to this, where else are you resisting taking action?
2. Once you start using the 24/7 Strategy, you will become more aware of your consumption-to-application ratio. The more content you consume, the harder this gets. There’s a limit to how much you can apply within a particular time frame. There’s almost no limit to how much you can consume. This strategy forces you to become more disciplined with what content you consume and how much because you must do something with it. 

Ideas into actions. Actions into experiences. Experiences into lessons. Lessons into skills. Skills into benefits.

Brick by brick Do the work.