Recap Of John’s Productivity Post

Just a quick list with some commentary that is my own.

• Time Blocking Schedule: I love time blocking. I don’t do it to nearly the same extent as John, but I do time block “hard to deal with repetitive tasks” (also known as “emails”). In a day I usually only have 1-2 hours time blocked, and the rest of the time is free to do the things I’ve deemed most important of the day (more on that later).
• Don’t Put Things Off: I am so bad at this. Good advice, though.
• Eliminate Waste and Prioritize: I like this, and I think it relates to time boxing in a way. It also allows you to appreciate everything just a little bit more.
• Consolidating: Some good stuff here. I’d add “make it a tradition” as well.

Alright, now to move on to my own personal list life efficiency. Let’s start with one that will help you to waste less time reading all these time-wasting Tofugu articles.

Read Faster:

The trick here is to get faster at reading while not losing retention. In college, being a liberal arts major unprepared for the real world, I at least had to learn to do one thing right: read. Reading is great and fun and educational, but it takes a friggin’ long time especially when your teacher wants you to read a novel a night. One thing I wished that I had done was learn to speed read… or at the very least, read much faster.

While I haven’t put in the effort to truly speed read (I’m a pretty slow reader compared to others, to be honest) I’m now a lot faster than I was previously. The problem is that people tend to reach a point where their reading speed is “good enough” and once they hit that point they never feel the need to get faster. It’s painful to try to read faster than you’re used to, in fact, so you actually have to work hard at it, kind of like when you were a child learning to read for the first time. Just imagine, though: think of all the articles, book pages, etc., that you read right now. What if you could read them 3x as fast? What if you could read them 10x as fast? You’d have a lot more time. Or, you’d be able to read a lot more. Either is great in my opinion.

To get started with speed reading, this article is a good place to begin: Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes

Type Faster

While you’re learning to read faster, you should learn to write faster too. Since most writing happens on keyboards nowadays, learning to type faster makes a lot of sense. Yet (just like with reading) people get to a point where they’re “good enough” at typing and then just stop getting better. If you don’t purposely push yourself to type faster (and make typing mistakes while you do it) you’ll never get faster at typing. It’s uncomfortable but it’s going to save you a lot of time in the long run. A few minutes saved a day (or maybe a lot more) over many years will gain you a lot of productive time… or at the very least give you more time to rest. No matter what, learning to type faster is something great you can do for your productivity.

First, you should see how fast you can type. Now you have a number to measure and work off of when you get started. Here are some possible options:

1. Just make yourself type faster: If you consciously try to type faster you’ll type a little faster. You’ll also start to make mistakes with your typing, but this is good. Take note of one or two mistakes you make often when you’re typing faster than normal (maybe you type “ofc ourse” instead of “of course” consistently) and then focus on fixing that one thing. Continue pushing yourself to type faster and fix one of the errors. Once that is comfortable, either push yourself to type even faster or move to another common error you have to fix. Whatever you do, the main thing is that you focus on typing faster than you’re comfortable with. Uncomfortable = good in this situation.
2. Play typing games: I find this typing game by Notch (Minecraft creator) to be particularly challenging. There are many more out there. Main thing is to be sure you’re able to measure your speed and improvement over time. Put it in a spreadsheet to keep track of the data and see your progression. If you’re not making any, you should probably change something.
3. Try other keyboard layouts: While this may be more work than it’s worth, I’ve dabbled in this once or twice but never really got into it. Some people find a lot of success moving away from the traditional keyboard layout (which isn’t good for typing, but good for preventing typewriters from getting stuck). The best and most common alternative method is the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. It’s supposed to help with wrist pain and hand cramps as well, I hear. Problem is that you’re learning a completely new way to type, so expect a lot of growing pains if you try it.

The overall lesson here is that you should consciously try to get better at typing. Even if you’re an adult and no longer “learning to type” it’s a really helpful thing that for some reason people don’t realize that they can do. I’m at around 100wpm right now, and I’ve grown “comfortable” with it. I imagine I could get this up a bit higher if I actually tried but I’m stuck at that “good enough” stage right now. Maybe I will force myself to type faster now that I’ve written this article. 50% more words in the same amount of time sounds really nice, actually.

Shortcut Keys Galore

This sort of has to do with typing faster but in a different way. The gist is this: The more shortcut keys you’re fluent in, the more you’ll be able to get done in a shorter amount of time. Keep your hands on the keyboard and away from your mouse. A mouse feels faster, but it’s not. Most things have a keyboard equivalent, and every time you can use the keyboard and not reach for your mouse, move it, and then click, you’re saving a few seconds. Depending on how much you use your mouse, you may be saving yourself a lot of time over your lifetime.

Computer Shortcuts

The most basic kind of shortcut is your operating system’s keyboard shortcuts. Basics like ctrl+c, ctrl+v, and ctrl+s are just icing on the cake (cmd if you’re a Mac user, of course). There are a ton more worth learning as well. For some tasks I feel like a modern, less talented version of Franz Liszt. I think I would be the next great pianist if I played piano as much as I type. Oh well.

It wasn’t always this way for me, though. I thought keyboard shortcuts ended at the basics. Little did I realize that there was a keyboard shortcut for just about everything. When you run out of these, you can install applications that allow you to expand your ability to use shortcut keys. It’s a deep rabbit hole indeed.

One way to get better at using shortcut keys is to make it harder to use your mouse. You could put your mouse far away from you, forcing yourself to go get it, plug it in, and then put it back away from you when you’re done. Or, you could change the settings on your computer to disallow using your trackpad, if you have one. Basic idea is that if you make it harder to use your mouse than it is to not use your mouse, you’ll learn how to use your keyboard. If you don’t know how to do something, look it up (using shortcuts, of course). After a few days or a week of this, you’ll be a shortcut key master.

Just a warning: doing this will hurt productivity a ton for a while.

Quicksilver / Alfred

One way to increase the number of things you can do with just your keyboard is to install something like Quicksilver or Alfred (there are Windows alternatives out there as well, I believe). This allows you to set up a shortcut to open an application that lets you type in something to perform an action.

For example, I type in cmd+spacebar and Alfred opens up. Then, I can type in an application name to open it, control iTunes, quick search the web, make calculations, put my computer to sleep, open documents, get access to my passwords from 1Password, send an email, and much, much, much more, all from a few keystrokes. Combine that with the ability to type fast and you’ll be getting things done in no time.

Seriously, this app is probably one of my favorite things ever and I still probably only use 10% of its features.

TextExpander

Speaking of most favorite things ever, I talked about this application on BoingBoing’s podcast, Gweek, and absolutely love it. The premise is this: You can assign an abbreviation to something that you type a lot, and whenever you type it somewhere on your computer Textexpander knows notices this and expands it to the “full version” for you. For example, you could create the abbreviation “//sig” that spits out your email / forum signature. You are typing in five characters instead of 100. That’s a great trade, productivity-wise.

It only starts there, though. Maybe you’re a programmer and have a snippet of code you type a lot. Or, maybe you’re writing mnemonics for WaniKani and have to write the same thing over and over again for certain vocabulary / kanji / etc. Or better yet, maybe you have to write similar email responses to the same kinds of questions over and over again (I’m looking at you people who keep emailing me to ask why さ/ち/ふ/そ/etc is written in different ways). The possibilities really are endless. Go take a look at examples of people’s TextExpander workflows to gain some inspiration. My favorite thing is to add kaomoji to TextExpander whenever I can.

(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ (when I type //ktable this appears!)

After a month or two, take a look at your statistics. I save around 10 hours a month using TextExpander (based on typing speed and characters saved). I could probably save a lot more if I added more email-related abbreviations. That’s a lot of real time saved, though. TextExpander is really, really amazing.

Take Naps

If there’s one thing that helps me with productivity, it’s to take a nap. I could sit around not really getting anything done for two hours or I could take a 20-30 minute nap and get a lot done in the remaining hour and a half. Just be sure to never go beyond the 30 minute mark or you’ll feel groggy. 20 is even better, I think.

While you’re at it, get enough sleep at night. While there was a time when I thought sleep was a waste of time (oh to be young again), getting enough sleep really does help a lot. Use an eye cover for better sleep and make sure your room is cold, if possible. You’ll feel better for it and get more done overall.

Organization & To-dos

To stay productive, it really does help to be organized. That being said, there are different ways to be organized. For me, I just try to put everything someplace that’s searchable. Once it’s in that magic place I can forget and not worry about it anymore. It’s there if I need it. This way, I can keep the “important” things in my brain simple and I find myself getting way less distracted. In general, here’s how I do it, though it won’t be the best way for everyone.

Evernote

We’ve mentioned Evernote quite a bit on Tofugu. It’s obvious we love the application and use it for a lot of things, including organization. Anything I don’t want to forget I put into here, from pics of bottles of wine I liked, to gifs I use (I have a whole gif notebook, sadly), to Tofugu company docs (we use Evernote for Business as well), to trip itineraries, to things I’m studying, to shopping lists, to articles I want to save, to pics of my kendo notes after every practice, to run on sentences like this one… Main purpose is to get these things out of my head and somewhere safe. I can access them on the web, on my phone, or on my computer. It even takes my text notes and makes them searchable. I have an offline version of everything as well. Now I don’t need to worry about all the little things. I just put it in Evernote and forget about it until I need to remember again.

To-Do Lists

I don’t really use to-do lists like most people. My to-do lists tend to be very disposable and short. I’ve gone back and forth on how to use to-do lists though, and this is the method I’ve found to be most productive (for me).

1. At the end of each day, write your to-do list for the next day. Only one day, not any longer.
2. To-do list should contain only a few things at the most. 2-3 is usually good. If you finish that list, you feel good and then can work on something else (or not feel guilty stopping for the day, maybe).
3. At the end of the day, throw away your to-do list (or delete it). I actually hand write my list out on small pieces of paper. It’s one of the few things I hand write these days. Post-it notes are good due to their small size as it forces you to not write too many things down.
4. When it’s the end of your day write your to-do list for the next day. Rinse and repeat.

That’s how my to-do list method goes. It prevents your lists from getting too long (and eventually demoralizing and impossible to complete). As for other long-term things I want to “do” — I put them into Evernote as “ideas.” They’re not “to-dos” this way, which makes me feel less distracted. Occasionally I’ll go through them and pull the things that are applicable to the moment. The more to-dos you have the more that’s on your mind and the less you’re able to focus. Lack of focus = lack of productivity. I think it’s important to keep things simple.

30-30 Method

This method is very nice if you’re feeling particularly unproductive or unmotivated. Idea is simple: Just work for 30 minutes and play for 30 minutes. Forcing yourself to play after 30 minutes makes you want to work (reverse psychology on yourself!). Plus, it makes you focus during those 30 minutes that you’re working, and a focused 30 minutes is better than an unfocused two hours, in my opinion. Important thing here is to stay strict on yourself (you must play the 30 minutes for this to work) and make adjustments where necessary (maybe you’d be better with the 10-10 method or the 60-60 method). Figure out what works for you, though I recommend starting with 30-30 as it seems to work for the most people and gives you enough time to actually do something, but not so much that tasks get big and unwieldy.

Automation

And, if the methods above weren’t efficient enough for you, here’s the most efficient thing of all: automation. With automation, once everything’s all set up you don’t have to do anything. You just sit back, relax, and watch your world spin. The more you can automate the more time you’ll have for something less soul sucking. How nice!

Gmail Filters

I can barely keep up with emails as it is, so this is an absolute must for me. Basically, anything that isn’t from a person sending something directly to me gets filtered using Gmail’s “filters” feature. Is it a Tofugu Comment notification? Automatically get it out of the inbox and into the “comments” label so I can look at them at my leisure some other time. Is it a mailing list I haven’t been able to unsubscribe from (I’m looking at you, Gamestop / JCrew)? Automatically delete it and mark it as spam, please! Is it from a relative, friend, or someone that I deem important in my life? Better star it and mark it as important so it goes to the top of my email list.

One neat thing I did with filters before I went to Taiwan / Japan / other places last month was to set up an auto-responder that would respond to anyone not on the “secret list” telling them that I was on  vacation and that they should email the support Tofugu/TextFugu/WaniKani email address instead, because their email just got archived and I wouldn’t be reading it. Then, just like the threat explained, their email was archived and I didn’t feel bad about not reading it. True vacation! Now, I hate vacation responders as much as the next person, but I can tell you that this felt really, really good to do. Depending on how things go the next couple weeks this may become a permanent feature in my inbox :p It has saved me a ton of time, and would allow me to focus more.

Learn about and use Gmail filters if you’re not already. It will make your life so much more worth living.

Boomerang / Mailbox

Speaking of emails, there’s a couple of other things I do in order to stay sane. Boomerang is something you can install on your Gmail inbox that let’s you do a few things. First, it can hide emails when you don’t want to see them and then makes them reappear when you do. Second (and the feature I like the best) you can schedule when your written emails get sent out. For example, even though I’m writing my emails every day from 12p-1p (time boxing!), I can have some of those emails send at 2am the following morning. I find that if I do this, I have fewer people responding right away and I can get to inbox zero a lot more easily. This helps me to stay on task and focused.

Another app that I like which is iOS only right now is Mailbox. I use it to move things out of my inbox that I don’t want to see right now. With a quick left-swipe I can tell the app to make an email (or all my emails) reappear in a few hours, a week, the next day, or any other time that I specify. Out of sight, out of mind… and when something is out of your mind it’s not nagging at you or taking away any of your focus. It’s kind of a cheaters way to gain inbox zero, but it doesn’t feel like I’m cheating on my end. Give it a try to see what I mean.

IFTTT

IFTTT (If This Then That) is a fun and useful web app that lets you automate the internet to your benefit (or amusement). Here’s some examples of things I do myself, using IFTTT (though there’s so much more you can do, personalized to your wants and needs).

• If it’s the day before a payday day, I get a text message reminding me to pay people their hard earned Fugu Dollars (what Tofugu employees are compensated in).
• If I post an image on Instagram, I automatically back it up to Dropbox.
• If I post something to Instagram, it will automatically get posted on the Koichi Facebook Page, which is nice because Instagram only lets you associate one Facebook thing to your Instagram account.
• If I post something to Instagram, it automatically emails the photo and subtitle to my mom, who doesn’t use Facebook or Instagram, but does use email. Here’s another picture of a kaiju, mom!
• If I favorite a tweet, it gets saved to Evernote.
• If I go somewhere on Foursquare, it gets added to my UP stream so I have a better idea of why my walk data spiked (or didn’t spike).
• If I add a contact to my phone, it gets backed up to a Google Spreadsheet.
• If I’m tagged in a photo on Facebook it gets downloaded to Dropbox.

There’s an amazingly large amount of other automated tasks you can run using IFTTT, but these are some of the ones that I like for myself. You can see how a lot of these tasks save me time (or just do things I wouldn’t normally do, automatically). You can browse a ton of “recipes” on the site as well to find out what others are doing.

Fancy Hands, Mechanical Turk, Task Rabbit, And More

This is the one section that I don’t really do myself but really want to get into. Automation via other people’s time in exchange for your $$$ seems like a nice enough trade, though it’s going to take me a little getting used to when I finally do get around to it. I have “issues” with letting other people do things for me sometimes…

Fancy Hands

I have a friend who uses this a lot, and I’ve seen the time-savings in action. One day he had them call Comcast (ugghhh) and cancel his old account since he just moved. They told Comcast all the info they could, then put Comcast on hold (ha!) and called my friend to get the last details that they needed to get the account canceled. Then they went back to the Comast call to get everything closed out and canceled. My friend didn’t have to wait on hold, didn’t have to talk to Comcast, and only had to answer a couple quick questions for the Fancy Hands representative. Usually they don’t call you at all, though this time some specific information was needed.

You can have them do any task that takes around 15 minutes to complete, and depending on your plan you have 5, 25, or more tasks at your disposal. Essentially it’s around $5/task, which isn’t all that bad of a trade to me. If I get an extra 1:15 per month for $25 that’s a trade I’d be willing to make. It gets more economical the more you are able to use it. Plus, the ability to not have to talk to Comcast’s BS is priceless. HOW DO YOU PUT A VALUE ON THAT?

Mechanical Turk

I’ve used Mechanical Turk a little bit in the past, mostly to transcribe audio to text. It’s useful for repetitive tasks that you can’t automate using a computer (though that’s becoming less and less common these days). The best part is you can break up spreadsheets into many tasks that many people do. For example, maybe you have a lot of pictures that you want to sort through. You need to know if there is a person in each picture. Put them all in a spreadsheet and have one person on Mechanical Turk do one picture. With thousands of people, this gets done very quickly. Suddenly you know what pictures have people in them, and you can organize them as such. At (I’m guessing based on past experience) one or two cents a picture, that’s very economical.

TaskRabbit

Along with Fancy Hands, this is one I want to try and use. I almost used it to get an In-n-Out Burger delivered to me during a flight layover in SFO (but ended up being a bit too expensive to justify). There are more uses than that, though. Say I don’t want to go grocery shopping, or maybe I want a wall painted, or perhaps I’m too lazy to go buy office supplies… TaskRabbit will allow you to put up a job and pay someone else to do that for you in an efficient and timely manner. You could do this on Craigslist as well, but TaskRabbit is going to be more reliable (more expensive, though). I have a feeling that once I start to use Task Rabbit I’ll never stop. Sounds like a really promising way to save time to me. Plus, I hate grocery shopping.

And More…

There are other options within this pay-to-be-productive realm as well. You can hire a (virtual) personal assistant for quite cheap these days, for example. There are other services that are like the ones I’ve listed above, too. It all depends on where you are and what you want to get done.

Relax A Little

There’s always more ways to become more productive in life, but sometimes it becomes too much and too stressful. Take it a little bit at a time, and work these tips into your life over a long period. If you do it all at once it’ll probably kill you. And, if you’re getting too overwhelmed, take a break. Sometimes a little rest is the best thing of all for your productivity. You’ll feel ready to go when you get back from your break and get a lot done before something/someone vile crushes all your hopes and dreams again. If this happens just rest again! You’ll get there eventually.

Hope something in this super-long post helped you. See, if you had taken my advice and learned to speed read you’d have been through this post way faster. Ha! Let me know some of your productivity tips in the comments below. We can all lose some productivity together by reading about productivity, you dig?

I think a lot of people don’t manage their time all that well. Many people probably don’t even realize it. If you could be more productive and have more free time to boot, wouldn’t you take that opportunity? Think of how much more Japanese you could study! Well, you could apply time management to any aspect of your life and use the benefits for any reason, but we’ll be focusing mostly on applying it to Japanese here. Let’s begin.

Time Blocking

I wrote about it a little bit before, but scheduling my time/blocking off my time has been and still is a great help to me getting everything done that I want to get done. Currently, I don’t use this technique every day, but I used to.

Since I used to schedule my time every day, I got very used to blocking off time and effectively scheduling days in my head. I still use the technique, but mostly I use it now on the weekends or when I have a lot more to accomplish in one day than usual.

Basically the idea behind this is that when you plan out your day you can see all the things you have to get done and knowing what time to start and stop the activities keeps you on track and keeps you from getting distracted. See below for an example schedule of a week.

Knowing that you have to study Japanese from this time to this time every day develops a habit and keeps you on track. And since I schedule things in 30 minute blocks, I usually have 5-10 minutes of “free time” in between activities. I use this “free time” to check Facebook, emails, YouTube, whatever. It works for me.

I also try not to schedule anything for longer than an hour (unless it’s an activity out of the house, like going out with friends, seeing a movie, or something like that). For me, I feel that if I play a game or study or read for longer than an hour or so I start to enjoy it less.

When I limit my activities to an hour or less and break them up with other activities, I find that I get more excited about coming back to said activity and really get more out of it in the end.

I have a full-time day job, I work for Tofugu, and I work out for about an hour every day. And yet, I still feel like I have plenty of time to play video games, read books, study Japanese, watch movies, hang out with friends, and catch up on Breaking Bad.

Don’t Put Things Off

Which brings me to my next point. If someone gives me really short notice on wanting to hang out some evening, going out to a party some night, or even an impromptu camping trip this weekend – most often I have no problem just going ahead and doing that. Why? Because I’ve already got most, if not all, of my things taken care of beforehand. Since I’m so productive every day, it’s relatively easy for me to make time for fun things and friends when they suddenly come up.

If I put everything off until the last minute all the time, I’d miss out. But since I schedule my time and spread my responsibilities out, I can afford to drop everything to do something fun. I know that I’ve already accomplished a lot that week and I know that I’ll be able to effectively manage my time to finish up anything remaining when I need to.

Of course, you can’t just drop everything all the time – otherwise you won’t get anything done! You need to learn to prioritize. You need to find that healthy balance between work and play. It is most definitely achievable. I think I’ve done it, and I know you can too.

Eliminate Waste and Prioritize

Are you aware of how much time you waste each day? If yes, stop doing those wasteful things. If you’re not aware of how much time you’re wasting every day, I’d recommend figuring out what those things are, and then getting rid of them.

Do you spend too much time on the internet? Surfing YouTube, Reddit, or Facebook? Do you really need to do those things? Are they that important to you? Well, maybe they are.

But if there are other things that are also important to you, then you need to prioritize. Have you ever heard someone say that “they didn’t have time” for something? Truth is, they had plenty of time for whatever it was, it just wasn’t a priority. You gotta prioritize.

If you find yourself lying in bed at the end of the day wishing that you’d studied more Japanese, feeling guilty about how you spent your time – do something about it. Would you feel guilty if you spent less time on Facebook or playing Candy Crush? No, probably not.

What things are most important for you to accomplish? If the three most important things for you are studying Japanese, playing video games, and hanging out with your significant other, make time for those things first. Put those things into your daily schedule first and then fill in the blanks with things of lesser importance around them.

If you do things each day that are important to you, you’ll feel more accomplished and less guilty for anything that you didn’t fit in come the end of the day. It’s a great feeling and it’s something I enjoy every day.

Consolidating

Another great way to save time is by doing two things at once. Do you drive to and from work or school? Do you exercise? Run? Cook? You could be doing other things at the same time. The first thing that comes to mind is passive Japanese study. I’ve touched on this a little bit before.

Let’s say in a normal day you drive to and from work and it takes you 15 minutes each way. Then in the evening you spend 30 minutes cooking dinner and another 30 minutes going for a run. If you just listened to Japanese (TV shows, audiobooks, language learning tapes) during that time, you’d have 1.5 hours of passive study taken care of that day without adding any extra time for it.

If you can find things like this during your day that you can effectively combine – you’re essentially putting more hours into your day. If you don’t consolidate time like in the previous paragraph’s example, you’d be spending a full 1.5 hours of your precious evening studying Japanese when you didn’t have to.

Of course when you consolidate, it’s important to do it intelligently. Passively studying Japanese while driving to and from work is a smart idea. Reading a book while you are driving is not. It’s up to you to determine what activities of yours make the most sense to consolidate without sacrificing anything (efficiency, safety, etc).

Assignment

So here’s what I want you to try. Like I said, if you already know what you do that isn’t productive – stop doing those things or at least do them less. That’s a good start. If you don’t know (and even if you think you do, you might be surprised), it might be a good idea to record how you spend your time one day, or even a handful of days to get a better feel for how you actually spend your time in a given week.

Record what time you wake up, how long you take for breakfast, shower, school, work, games, studies, etc. Basically just make a schedule like I talked about before, except you’re just using it to record your day. Then when the day is over, you can look back at everything you did and exactly how much time you spent doing things.

For some of you, this might be a real eye opener. You might not have realized that you spend 2 hours each day just farting around on the internet not actually accomplishing anything. You might not have realized that over a full week you spend less time studying Japanese than you spend bathing. Who knows? It’s worth taking the time to find out.

Once you have a good idea of how much time you actually spend on everything, you can see where cuts can be made. You can see what activities can be consolidated. Do you really need to spend 2 hours on Facebook each day? Of course not. Allocate an hour of that to studying Japanese, 30 minutes of that to playing video games, and the other 30 minutes can still be used for Facebook. Or something. Do what you need to do. Prioritize and organize your life.

After you do this, just try and schedule one day. At least one day – a week if you can, just to see how much more productive you really can be. I usually schedule my day in the morning or shortly after getting back from work, but do what works for you. If you feel more productive and accomplished by the end of the week/day, you’ll know that it’s working.

How many hours of Japanese do you want to study each week? Schedule that many blocked hours into your week and stick to it. It’s all laid out in front of you and at specific times. If you miss one block, reschedule it for later. If your initial goal is too much or too little, adjust it until you’re comfortable. This is your personal schedule, so you’re in total control here.

Stay Positive

A lot of this comes down to your attitude too. If you’re positive and open minded about things, it’s a lot easier to be motivated. This kind of fits in with the “Assignment” section, but I’m making this its own header to really drive home how important I think this is.

I’ve read a lot of books that have reinforced my positive attitude and really motivated me. The most recent book I’ve read about positive thinking was “As A Man Thinketh” by James Allen. It was first published in 1902, but it’s not difficult to read at all. It’s only about 60 pages long and it’s a super easy read. I really enjoyed it, and I think anyone could get something out of it.

All that you accomplish or fail to accomplish with your life is the direct result of your thoughts.

As in the rankest soil the most beautiful flowers are grown, so in the dark soil of poverty the choicest flowers of humanity have developed and bloomed.

Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.

So if you have some free time – read this book. Seriously. It’s such a short book and you can read it for free online. There’s no reason not to check it out. Maybe you won’t like it as much as I did, but I really hope that you do. It really gets you pumped and inspired about everything. Your attitude towards life is incredibly important.

It’s Not For Everyone

Now, I know scheduling your life is not for everyone. I know some people who are diametrically opposed to blocking off time every day or doing anything similar to what I do. That’s fine. I understand. But if you want to get more out of every day and really feel accomplished each night when you go to bed, I think trying to incorporate some if not all of these ideas would be a great help.

And it’s not like the daily schedules are carved in stone. You’re the one making these schedules for yourself. You can change them. You can adjust them. It’s all up to you. If you possess self-control and discipline, you can accomplish everything you need to do and still have the time and flexibility to live your life. If I can do it, you can too.

So tell me, do any of you do anything remotely similar to what I do? What do you find works best for you and what would you suggest to others trying to make the most of their time (studying Japanese or otherwise)? Share your thoughts and advice down in the comments!

And if you took the time to read “As A Man Thinketh” (well done!), let me know what you thought of it.

P.S. Want more productivity tips? Read Part 2, this time from Koichi’s perspective.

The Wind, The Rain, & The Temperature

The thing about the weather is that it really depends on what you like and what you don’t like, as an individual. For me when I’m planning a trip to Japan, if I’m traveling I’d prefer it not to rain. That being said, I don’t mind if it’s super cold, which is why I make most of my trips to Japan during the winter (very low rainfall, cold). Then again, other people might like a few extra degrees in the temperature column, but would be willing to risk a little extra rain. Luckily, there are graphs for that.

Source: World Weather And Climate Information

*Note: These graphs are for Tokyo. I figured that would be a good “average” / “where most people go anyways” sort of place to start. Visit the website cited above for more info on individual cities.

The top graph provides information on rainfall in Japan. The second has to do with temperature. As you may have noticed, in general, the lower the temperature the less rain. So, if you want less rain, you should travel to Japan in January or December (February isn’t bad either).

So why does it rain a ton in September? Well, that’s typhoon season. Why’s it so rainy in June? Well, that’s rainy season. These are things that you need to know when visiting. If you don’t do your research, you could end up thinking it’s nice and warm and dry in August only to find yourself stuck in your hotel room during a typhoon. That would be no fun.

These are just general recommendations, though. Let’s get into the seasons more intimately.

The Seasons

Each season of Japan has its pros and its cons. It’s just a matter of what your preference is. One funny thing many Japanese believe is that they’re the only country with four distinct seasons. While I agree they have four distinct seasons, the “only Japan has them” part is probably just a bit of… well… plain lies. But, since they are fairly distinct, I thought it would be good to lay each season out for you so you can figure out which one seems like a good fit for you.

Spring

photo by morning_rumtea

The spring season is okay in terms of both rain and warmth, that is until you hit the rainy season which tends to pop up at the end of spring in June. To me, April and May are fairly good times to visit, not just because of the weather but also because of cherry blossom viewing (big deal in Japan).

If you want to do cherry blossom viewing, you’ll want to arrive in late March or early April. Depending on where you are it may be prime time to view them or not. It’s a lot like a cherry blossom wave that sweeps from the southern part of the country north, so if you’re showing up late just travel up towards Hokkaido and maybe you’ll catch up. Their best viewing time doesn’t last too long.

Spring also has Golden Week, aka “OMG WHY MY MANGA NO UPDATE???” week, which is April 29 – May 5. A lot of people travel during this time, so it’s often good to avoid it if you can.

Besides this, though, you’ll find mild weather… not too hot and not too cold, as well as not too much rain (unless you’re there too late in the spring). It’s not my favorite time to go to Japan, but not my least favorite. I’d say out of all the seasons it ranks 3 of 4, so at least one thing is worse for me personally.

Summer

Photo by 刀哥

You would think that summer is the best time ever to visit Japan. Right? Right??? Well, in terms of my own opinion, I’d have to respond “wrong.” I mean, look at the dude above. If that didn’t scare you away, maybe this will.

The thing about summer is that it’s hot. Like, really hot. On top of that the humidity is pretty terrible too. If it’s not raining tanuki and kitsune due to typhoons (September is mega typhoon season) the humidity will feel so thick that it might as well be. That being said, I’m talking about the lower elevations. That’s pretty much all the big cities in Japan. Plus, the farther south you go the worse it gets.

Of course, you could visit the mountains during the summer (perfect temperature, lower humidity) as well as Hokkaido. In fact, the one saving grace about summer is Hokkaido. Go there during the summer, it’s absolutely perfect. As long as you avoid any typhoons (they don’t make it up that far north for the most part) the weather is comfortable, it doesn’t rain too much, and did I mention it’s basically perfect? Mmmmm, melons!

In terms of my personal ratings, though, summer ranks 4 out of 4 for me. Although it can be nice if you go to the right places, overall it’s my least favorite time to be in Japan, though I’m a wuss when it comes to heat and humidity. One saving grace, perhaps, is that you can catch Obon in August. But yeugh. So hot and humid.

Fall/Autumn

Photo by Cristiano Betta

As soon as typhoon season is over (early Octoberish), Japan gets pretty nice again. Rainfall drops considerably and the temperature is still fairly warm. Although it can be a little tricky at times, arriving in mid-October is often pretty sweet timing. You get the warmth of Japan without as much rainfall (though there still may be some).

Possibly a little safer is November, though if you want any warmth make sure to do it in the early part. November is even less rainy, though it’s a little colder. Notice a pattern here?

I think for a lot of people autumn is the way to go. If you don’t like the cold and you don’t like to rain, autumn is generally superior to the kind of similar spring season. Although this depends your location, autumn means cheaper flights as well. Autumn ranks 2 of 4 for me, meaning you can probably guess what’s coming next…

Winter

Photo by dishhh

…is coming.

Winter is totally my favorite. I love the cold and am very happy to not travel while it’s raining. When you come to Japan in December or January, you’re basically guaranteed an (almost) rain free existence, unless you get really unlucky. It is cold, though, so be sure to pack accordingly.

There are some times in winter that are better than others, though. A little before Christmas the kids get out for a winter holiday. You may not want to travel during this time (so get to Japan in early December for peaceful not-too-busy traveling). Also, New Years is a huge deal in Japan. This could be a good thing or a bad thing for you. If you want to participate in the festivities, head on over to a big temple and party like it’s 1868 again. If you don’t like all the hotels to be full and all the trains packed, avoid the New Years time. Pretty much everything is closed the few days after New Years too, so you have to take that into account. To me, I love it, but it’s not for everyone.

Another big event is the Snow Festival in Hokkaido. This is a week of snow-related fun, but it’s very crowded and very cold. Not for everyone, but definitely the kind of event that you should go to if you can!

Besides these times and places, traveling tends to be pretty slow. You’ll find that many big tourist attractions aren’t as busy as they normally are, and while this can be a great thing because you get the whole place to yourself, it can also mean there is less lodging available too (for example, on Cat Island you can go there in the winter and get the whole island to yourself but there’s no place to stay).

And of course, if you’re into winter sports (skiing, snowboarding, competitive snowball fighting) winter is pretty nice in Japan. I’m not into those kinds of things, but if you are it may make for a more interesting trip.

For me, Winter ranks number 1 out of 4. It won’t be #1 for you, necessarily, but I think it’s overall the best time to visit. Just don’t get caught in a snowdrift and freeze to death while visiting Jesus’ grave, okay?

When Will You Travel?

Photo by xlibber

You definitely know yourself better than I know you. But, the above is how I feel about travel with a little bit of non-winter-bias thrown in to boot. All the seasons have their good points. Sometimes it’s price, sometimes it’s the festivals, and sometimes it’s the weather. You’ll have to decide what’s the most important to you. No matter when you choose, though, I’m sure you’ll have a great time. It’s not like a little a lot of humidity will ruin a whole trip. Humidity has its good points, right?

So what travel experience do you have to share? What times have you found to be really good for you? What about times when you should stay away? Post them down in the comments to let others know how you feel and maybe you’ll help someone out with your advice!

You have a finite amount and you have to use it right. That’s why I spend so much time (hurr hurrr) on TextFugu going over ways you can study more efficiently and gain more time. It’s also why we cut out unnecessary readings, vocab, and even handwriting from WaniKani, because your time should be spent learning things that will give you the most impact first (and then you can come back around when you have more of that “time” thing). This is also why I wrote the “30 Days To Becoming A Better Japanese Student” ebook. You can definitely save a ridiculous amount of study time just by changing a few small things. You’re trading time for more time. What a nice deal!

The thing is, though, learning Japanese requires a lot of time. Like, a ton. Learning Japanese is measured in years, not days or months. Time, along with “motivation,” are perhaps the two biggest factors for people when learning Japanese. They are also the two things that come up time and time again as you study, so they never really leave you once you start. There will be days where you feel like time is your best friend. There will be others where it’s your mortal enemy. I’m here to help you, though. I’ve put together two lists. One is “I don’t have enough time” and the other is “I want to spend my time efficiently.” For your sake and the sake of time, I’ll put everything into bullet points.

I don’t have enough time

This is for those of you who are using this excuse to avoid starting studying Japanese (or continuing). If you feel overwhelmed and feel like you never have enough time you should probably stop reading things on the Internet like this article, but only after you’ve finished reading this article. Okay? Good.

• Start a “ritual.” This is something you just “do” instead of “have to do.” This is like, “when I get home, I do my WaniKani reviews.” It’s not an option, it’s just what you do. Rituals don’t feel like they take time but chores do. What part of your Japanese studies can you change into a ritual?
• Do you walk places? Do you ride things? Do you take showers? If so, you should be using those opportunities to try out some passive learning. Also, consider talking to yourself like a crazy person.
• Remember that it’s about the small, consistent chunks. Don’t study 8 hours all at once, one time a week. Study 30 minutes a day or 15 minutes a day twice, or something along those lines. The time between study sessions is important for that giant brain of yours to process things. Plus, smaller chunks are easier to manage, time-wise. Do you have 15 minutes today?
• Consider your current responsibilities. Humans have a hard time quitting. But, sometimes quitting something is the best thing to do. Even though it hurts to quit, take a look at the things that take up your time. What wouldn’t kill you to stop doing? What could you pay someone else to do? Imagine how nice it would be if you had that time for Japanese. No seriously, imagine it!
• Do you have “repetitive responsibilities?” Things like Facebook, Twitter, and email? Those things take up a ton of time, especially if you are viewing them all the time / in real time. Compress these things into very strict batches. For example, 12:30-1:00pm is generally my email time. I don’t get it all done during that time, but I get a lot more of it done than if I just check it constantly. Also, I’ve only spent 30 minutes on it and I don’t feel stressed out about “whether or not I have any email to check” the rest of the day.
• Don’t let yourself get interrupted. I read somewhere that each time you’re interrupted it takes around 30 minutes to get focused back into what you were doing before you got interrupted. Do things like close the door, put on headphones, or hide/close social media and email (previous bullet point will help). Interruptions are your enemy, and they destroy huge time chunks every time they occur. Take this very seriously and you’ll find yourself with a lot more time.
• Give yourself less time. This may seem unintuitive, but the less time you give yourself the more focused you become. Also, forcing yourself to cut off what you’re doing makes you want to do it more.
• Plan a little bit. Although I’m personally not a huge planner, planning helps a ton. Deciding what you’re going to do before you do it then turning it into actionable tasks is a great way to give yourself more time. Most people spend all their time deciding what they want to do and never do what they should be doing. You should decide what you want to do and then do it.
• If you haven’t yet, learn hiragana. It makes it so you have access to all the best Japanese language resources. If you can only study with crap, you’ll only poop out slightly more digested crap, and that’s a waste of time.
• Did you read this article? Okay, you have some time then, no excuses.

Hopefully some of these were helpful. So now how about efficiency?

I want to spend my time efficiently

This is if you’re studying Japanese, but think / know you’re spending way too much time studying it. I mean, you should spend a lot of time studying Japanese, but the more efficient you are the more you’ll learn and be able to use, which will help you to get better faster. Suffice to say, efficiency is helpful for time in the long run.

• A good SRS is going to be key. If studied with on a daily basis, this will make sure that you study what you need to when you need to, and make sure you don’t see things too often (thus wasting time). We recommend Anki / Memrise for general SRS systems, and our very own WaniKani for the radicals/kanji/vocab system. Over a long period, an SRS will save you many months, possibly years of study time.
• Learning in the correct order is important, though this is hard for a beginner to figure out on their own because they have no idea what is used and what is not. There are “order” vocab / kanji lists out there, though. iKnow has a “Core 2000″ list which seems like it’s based on the most common words from newspapers (you can get this on Anki as well). There are also other lists out there that do similar things. Doing this for kanji is important too (what we do on WaniKani / TextFugu). The idea here is to study the words that will give you the most impact right away so that you understand more, earlier, allowing you to study with more advanced and realistic resources earlier as well.
• Early on, study kanji more than you think (or more than anyone tells you). The fact is, the more kanji you know the easier and everything else will become. Literally every part of Japanese has some reliance on your ability to read kanji. You should absolutely be learning this as quickly as possible, even if it’s the only thing you focus on for a while. Try WaniKani, Remembering The Kanji, or KanjiDamage for this.
• Sometimes spending some money will make things more efficient. While there are plenty of free resources out there that will get the job done, one drawback is that they are very disorganized and require you to do a lot of the footwork. While this is fine for some people it is very inefficient for others. Time ain’t free, as they say.
• Really focus on “why” something works the way it does. Even if you have to spend extra time doing this, the time it will save you in the long run is incalculable.
• Focus on the things you’re bad at. The things that you’re bad at are holding you back and slowing you down. People who are really good at something aren’t good because they ignored what they’re bad at, obviously. Figure out what these are and tackle them head on. Then, everything moving forward will go quicker, saving you more time.
• Fix the things that slow most people down. They eat away at your study speed over a long period of time but they really shouldn’t.
• Spend some time learning how memory works. For example, learning that “recall” (pulling something out of your head) is what builds memory was a big breakthrough for me. It’s not about what you put in (or how many times you put it in… I’m looking at you people who write kanji over and over again), it’s what you pull out.
• Forget about writing Japanese. Although a little bit helpful (people type these days anyways), it doubles or triples the amount of time you have to study. Instead, focus on reading because this is something you can use right away. With all the time saved from not writing things, you can learn twice as much Japanese.
• Also don’t forget, there is no speed limit.

As the venerable Douglas Adams once said, “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” While time can be dicey at times, all of you have some time to study Japanese if that’s what you want to do. Don’t let time be an excuse. In fact, you’ll make time for anything you want time for, so the question is, do you really want it? Maybe you should JFDI.

We wrote a bit about this a few months ago with Japan’s traditional six day rokuyou calendar, but it turns out that isn’t all there is. The Japanese also had a twelve hour time system based on the Chinese zodiac.

The Basics of the Zodiac Clock

The fact that the traditional Japanese clock They’re known as wadokei (和時計) was based on the Chinese zodiac is probably the least surprising thing about it. We’ve written before about how the Chinese zodiac is so influential in Japan that it caused people to stop makin’ babies (at least for a year).

The clock is divided into two parts: one for daytime and one for nighttime. Each “hour” is associated with an animal from the zodiac. The daytime hours start at sunrise, with noon at the hour of the horse.

Notice anything weird? Instead of just counting down from six to one, the clock only goes from six to nine. What’s the big deal? One through three weren’t used in wadokei because they had special religious significance to Buddhists.

The night clock goes pretty much the same way as the day clock, but with different zodiac animals. It begins at sundown, with midnight at the hour of the rat.

Problems started cropping up when wester-style mechanical clocks were introduced in Japan. Since the hours of the zodiac clock are based on daylight, the hours aren’t the same length and change throughout the year.

The Japanese had some ways to compensate for this, but none were especially elegant. Most of the time, they just adjusted or replaced the face of the clock every couple of weeks. It was clunky, to say the least.

Over time, the zodiac clock fell out of favor for the now-standard 24-hour clock in 1873, when the Japanese government adopted the western style of timekeeping.

Do the Japanese miss this clock today? Do they yearn for the hour of the tiger? Doubtful, seeing as it’s just one of many measurement systems abandoned and forgotten by the Japanese. It still is cool to think about though, because it just goes to show how far we have come.

Read more: Telling the Time in 17th-19th Century Japan, Wikipedia

Thanks to Aaron for emailing this in!

Header photo by Arjan Richter

I saw the giant dip in birth rates in 1966 and was confused. I flipped around a couple of pages and didn’t see any explanation. Was it some sort of error? Was there a big natural disaster that I didn’t know about? What exactly happened in 1966? Turns out that the explanation was stranger than I could even imagine.

The Other Chinese Zodiac

In Western society, we don’t have too many superstitions associated with dates; there’s Friday the 13, but that’s about it. In East Asian societies, there’s a whole lot more superstitious dates.

Last week, Viet wrote about the six-day calendar, but date-based superstitions dosn’t stop there. The Chinese Zodiac still holds more sway over the Japanese mindset than people realize.

Most people know about the Chinese Zodiac calendar and the 12 animals that comprise it; most people probably even know which animal they are (for the record, I’m a snake). East Asia and parts of Southeast Asia observe the Chinese Zodiac, at least on some level.

What lots of people don’t know is that there is another cycle that goes along with the Chinese zodiac. This second cycle goes through five elements: fire, wood, earth, metal, and water, and combines with the first cycle to make combinations like earth snake or metal dragon. Each of these combinations occurs once ever sixty years.

Some combinations have great associations, but others have very negative connotations. The most infamous of all being the Fire Horse (丙午/hinoeuma).

The Infamous Fire Horse

People born during the year of the Fire Horse are notorious for being bad luck. People born during a Fire Horse years are said to be irresponsible, rebellious, and overall bad news.

And for some reason, women are said to be especially dangerous Fire Horses. They supposedly sap their family’s finances, neglect their children, and drive their father and husband to an early grave.

This myth is so powerful that it seriously affects how people behave. Men might avoid marrying a Fire Horse, and families avoid giving birth to Fire Horse children.

In 1966, the year of the Fire Horse, people in Japan (and elsewhere in Asia) really, really tried not to have kids, either because they thought that the Fire Horse myth was true, or because they were worried that others would treat their kids differently because of the Fire Horse myth. Japanese people practiced birth control, and used abortion all in an effort to not have children during the year of the Fire Horse.

Pokémon, or Chinese Zodiac sign?

And if you’ll notice on the graph, there was a bit of a spike in births during 1965 and 67, another result of people avoiding the year of the Fire Horse.

Why wasn’t there such a dramatic dip in 1906, the previous year of the Fire Horse? There are a couple of reasons.

The Japanese census wasn’t as accurate nor thorough in 1906, so people could have kids, hide them from the official record, and pretend that they were born a different year, completely sidestepping the curse of the Fire Horse. Not to mention that birth control and abortion wasn’t as advanced or widely available in 1906.

Fire Horses Of The Future

The next year of the Fire Horse won’t happen for another 14 years, in 2026. Japan has definitely come a long way since 1966, but does the Fire Horse superstition still hold sway over Japanese culture? Only time will tell.

Header Image Source: My Little Koichi