use consciously about two minutes of my day on savings, and I do a few monthly activities - a budget summary, paying bills, dividing my resources between different assets, and so on - it takes me about two hours, so overall, it's six minutes a day, and it brings me the results. I've saved almost five times more than a year ago.
So, why is it the Ten-Minute Philosophy? I find that 10 minutes is a nice, easy number. It can even be two minutes, and you will still see results, if it is two minutes of sustained, daily action. With two minutes of course, the results will be smaller; the compounded effect will take about 50 times longer to materialize than with 10 minutes of daily work.
Every - even the tiniest - sustained action brings result.
This truth is the core of my philosophy – this approach will always triumph over the two major obstacles of any lasting change: fear of failure and giving up. Fear of failure stops you before you begin; giving up stops you some time later, but usually happens before the compounding results have become visible.
Every action brings results in the end. As long as you apply sustained energy to something, you can't fail. You have nothing to fear. You can start working toward your goals without the burden of hesitations and doubts.
If you believe, if you know that every sustained action brings results, giving up is out of the question and any incentives for resignation disappear.
"Alright," you say. "I get the theories, but how are they applicable to my life?" I concur, theorizing doesn’t drive results. What led me to embrace this philosophy wasn’t stories or the preaching of others. It was my own experience.
In order to feel at a gut level that it is indeed a universal law, applicable also to you, please give a thought to any successful area of your life. It can be anything - your marriage, a specific skill, a career, the fact that you have never had a car accident, good grades at school, patience, your great relationship with your parents. The best thing for this little exercise will be something you take for granted, but other people are praising you for. So, pick one and think: what makes you successful in this area? What's the difference between you and the people who praise you, who aren't successful? What do you do that they don't?
I bet you will find some sustained action underlying your success.
I took for granted the love in my family. I hadn't noticed that it was anything special until my newfound online friends drew my attention to it through their comments on my personal blog. I gave it some thought and saw the sustained action. I tell my wife and kids I love them every day.
And this is just one instance of this law. I have found many other examples behind my big and small successes - my high-school diploma, the scholarship I received for my 4th year of university studies, my personal fitness progress.
It is true. You will find such examples in your life, too.
Look at the time/results chart once again. You probably noticed how the results grow exponentially after some point. As I said earlier - the more time you invest, the better results you get. I'm assuming that speed reading is not your first priority, so you don't want to invest much time. I understand you have your family to take care of, bills to pay, work to do, people to help, projects to attend to, relationships to keep or improve. A speed reading practice comes after all of those activities in your life, so it's natural you read at average speed. You have more pressing matters to take care of. You have only twenty four hours, and it's hard to find time for anything else. Thus, 10 minutes.
Speed Reading Obstacles
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Unfortunately, the vast amount of knowledge we have gathered as humans seems to guarantee that we have at least two opinions about every single thing. Just look at the various diets and fitness strategies: eat that - no, eat this; eat in the morning - no, eat