(I know, it’s a compass, not a watch. Did it get your attention?)

Yes, it would be serendipitous if we could all flick a switch and suddenly be able to stick to disciplined schedules and complete our entire To Do list after work each day. Unfortunately, that’s not how the life of a medical professional goes. We spend all day wearing out our bodies and our minds, and a tired person is hardly a motivated one. So how do we handle that? According to productivity guides The Power of Habit and The Talent Code, the key is converting the pursuit of our goals into daily habits instead of everyday choices. The best way I’ve found to do that for almost anything–exercise, reading, saving, eating healthy–is the power of 10 minutes.

The Power of Ten Minutes

When you get home from school or work….DO NOT SIT DOWN, especially not on the couch. Start tackling the top thing on your wish list, and commit to working on it for ten minutes. I find that just a few minutes of discipline overcomes my post-work inertia, and long-ignored tasks begin disappearing. If you sit down, even for just a breather, you’ll end up watching Netflix and Youtube videos for hours until you fall asleep, which will feel good for about 12 seconds. Then you’ll toss and turn for hours and end up bear crawling into your bedroom. You’ll be groggy, you won’t truly be rested, and your To Do list will continue to grow. At some point it will seem insurmountable because you don’t even know where to start. You won’t exercise for months, your debt will grow faster than your list did, and you’ll look like the Big Lebowski, which, incidentally, you’ve now watched 12 times. Not good.

Exercise for ten minutes:

Whether you do it in the morning or at night, commit to just ten minutes of exercise, lifting, stretching, or yoga per day. Muster the willpower to get through your ten minutes, and then see what happens. If you’re feeling good, keep going. Do another video or jog or lift. If you don’t, then you need the rest anyway–but now you know it’s not just mental fatigue. You’ll be surprised how many excellent workouts follow when you thought you were all tuckered out. We use the yoga videos at Boho Beautiful. You’ll make fun of me until you’ve tried a ten minute Pilates video you can’t finish.

Wait ten minutes after eating to get seconds, or to order dessert:

Let that ghrelin/leptin pathway do it’s thing (I would have put a more thorough diagram but I’m studying for Step 2 and those pathways make me want to puke). Your gut and your wallet will thank you later. I have a similar rule for ordering alcoholic beverages, but it’s five minutes. I don’t think I need to explain.

Use less than ten minutes to calculate the value of your time, and use it to make purchasing decisions:

If you’re a resident, I’ve done the math for you. As an intern I made roughly $7.20 an hour (after taxes and insurance withdrawals). Keep that number in mind when you try to decide if you want to spend two hour’s wages on lunch or 11 hour’s work on a sweater.

If you’re a student, the calculation is different, because you’re probably not making much (even though I think you can and should). Instead, use the cost of a dollar after it’s been paid off at current student interest rates. If it takes you 20 years to pay off your loans and they’re at 6.8% like mine, every dollar will eventually cost $4.70 (4 years interest + compounding for 20 years). You’ll actually need to make more than that to pay that off after taxes, but since you’ll also refinance and hopefully pay it off faster, we’ll call it a draw. That means lattes cost $18.80 and taking care of a dog for a year (average $1,000) costs $4,700. My advice: live well by being dollar smart and penny stupid. Buy a bunch of lattes but no dogs, and only the sweaters that you need.

Spend ten minutes a few times a week reading on things other than your career–fiction, special interests, travel, personal finance. I recommend this blog (obviously). I make sure posts take less than ten minutes to read, and I only post once or twice a week!

I’d love to hear other ways you’ve found to create habits or accomplish things that most of us think are impossible while in school or residency. What works? What doesn’t? How many times have you watched The Big Lebowski?