How Small Study Goals Lead to Big Results

I've set a goal for myself to study every day. Do I achieve it? Yes. How? Small targets.

What image did you think of when I stated "study every day."?  Me sitting at a desk, pencil in hand with piles of text books around me. Masami drilling the meanings of Japanese particles? Me, wearing a kimono writing kanji with a brush and ink? Spending hours and hours reading through a Japanese-English dictionary? No way! I would consider myself a casual learner (some would say a slow learner which would not be quite correct.). 

 So how do I study every day? 

Easy. I study for 10 minutes. I know I can spare 10 minutes out of one day, so that's what I do. Actually, on average I study about 30 minutes per day because I want to learn more.

"If you can spare 30 minutes a day for studying, why not set your goal at 30 minutes day?"

Good question.:

1) 10 minutes is enough time to learn something new or reinforce what I know.

Great, I'm gaining confidence or expanding my knowledge. Win and/or win.

2) At 10 minutes I have succeeded my goal.

I feel good about that, which, motivates me to study a bit more. Hooray for succeeding small targets!

3) I can guarantee 10 minutes of distraction free time.

30 minutes is possible but I can get, 100% certain, 10 minutes of distraction free time .

4) There's only so much you can study in 10 minutes.

There's no chance of study fatigue so I don't feel like studying is a burden or troublesome. Again, it makes me want to get back to the books, applications, recordings or whatever resource I'm using to study.

These are the reasons why I study for 10 minutes every day. Because of these things I feel encouraged to study every day. If I'm not feeling up to studying one day, well, it's only 10 minutes and I'm done. Simple.

I may not be fast tracking my learning but I'm also not giving up and stopping learning altogether.

Hooray for succeeding small targets!

Further reading

・Lost Motivation? Here's How to Get Back Into Studying