What Can You Do In 15 Minutes a Day?

At this point, 90% of my blog posts are inspired by podcasts. What can I say? Awesome conversations are fodder for blog posting.

The podcast in question here is a June 2021 episode of Let’s Do Life with Autumn Calabrese called Ask for More with Alex Carter. The guest in this case is Alexandra Carter, legal professor at Columbia University. Alex is discussing her book Ask for More: 10 Questions to Negotiate Anything.

Give the episode a listen for the general information on how to apply questioning techniques to become an expert negotiator and advance your goals.

However, my specific epiphany came when Alex discusses her process for writing the book:

“If you’ve ever wondered how somebody does something huge, like write a book or build a seven-figure business, I’m going to tell you the answer – the answer is that they did it one step at a time. […] You’re looking at the finish line and it’s so far away you can’t see it and instead of taking that first step you say “Oh, I’ll never make it.” And you psych yourself out.

You want to know how I wrote Ask For More? I wrote it 15 minutes a time. I wrote it sitting in the stands at my daughter’s swim meet. I wrote it sitting in the airport before I would get on a flight. I wrote it in between meetings. I wrote it at night. I would write when I had ten minutes in a coffee shop. And that is how I wrote a book while being a mom and a wife and having at least a full-time job.

The fact is that if you just got up every day and did one thing, you would be in a tremendous place a year from now. And five years from now? You would have no idea. I’ve heard it said that we overestimate what we can do in week but we greatly underestimate what we can do in a year.

And so my message here today is; steer yourself and your relationships one step at a time.”

Perhaps this struck me so much because I was listening to these words as a first-time mama to a two-month old. In the thick of this momentous life change, I was in love with my baby, but also afraid that the projects and activities I greatly enjoyed – writing this blog, creative writing, fitness, cooking, socializing – would fall to the wayside as a result of the time and effort needed to nurture a small human.

So, to hear Alex say that she wrote a book in 15-minute chunks wherever she could gave me hope. Even when our time is limited, we can make meaningful progress toward a major goal in 15-minute chunks.

If you are entering a new phase of life or feeling you are unable to pursue your goals because you don’t have enough time, can you find 15 minutes?

I applied this every-little-bit-counts mentality to my creative writing, believing that I could still make progress even if I couldn’t retreat to a coffee shop for hours at a time. As a result of embracing small but consistent work blocks, I made more consistent progress on a project in the past 7 months than I had in the past 7 years.

You might be thinking: Oh, that’s really nice. Advice about how to write a book is helping you write a book. But maybe you have zero interest in writing a book.

I still make the argument that whatever area of your life you want to improve, you can make a different in consistent 15-minute chunks.

·        15 organizing minutes cleaning and decluttering your environment

·        15 active minutes walking, moving, stretching

·        15 calm minutes meditating, journaling, praying

·        15 focused minutes playing with your kiddo

·        15 present minutes snuggling and communicating with your significant other

·        15 minutes painting, practicing an instrument, or dancing

Consistent, bite-sized action will always beat grandiose but sporadic gestures.  

In the words of Doris Lessing: “Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”

What will you do with your 15 minutes?

I can’t wait to see.