Twenty-Minute Timers

Hey, I’m Taylor Vogel and this is Now That I’m Not Your Teacher. [cue music] Each week we’ll explore an aspect of adulting that you might have missed in school. Since I used to be a teacher, I’ll structure it in ways that are proven to help you retain information. But since I’m not your teacher anymore, I can approach it in a way that’s honest and sometimes inappropriate for a classroom.
In this week’s unit, we’re talking timers and how using them can make a HUGE difference in the success you feel. We’ll work this week in time increments, with twenty minutes today.
At the beginning of 2020, I set a goal to read 20 books. That’s a lot of twenties, and while I would like to say it was all intentionally linked, I just wanted to finally hit that goal. I had aimed to read twenty books in a year for four years, and hadn’t yet gotten there, until last year when I took the advice of Laura Tremaine, host of the podcast 10 Things to Tell You (sidebar, and this isn’t sponsored, but Laura is one of my favorite people on the internet and her book, Share Your Stuff, I’ll Go First, comes out on February 2, it’s the farthest in advance I’ve ever pre-ordered a copy of a book). Laura talks books and reading a LOT, and I know that she’s a busy human. She’s a mom of two, runs her own business, and is pretty engaged in the Hollywood scene when things are normal. So when she mentioned setting a twenty-minute reading timer on her podcast’s very first episode, “When do you read?” I decided this would be what I try—and I had NO idea how much of an impact doing something for twenty minutes a day could make!
In 2020, I not only met my goal, but I met it in October by setting a timer for twenty minutes, and that includes not reading for the first month and a half of lockdown. Twenty minutes a day makes a HUGE difference, and is the perfect amount of time to devote daily to a new habit you want to form. I am comfortable having my phone on Do Not Disturb for twenty minutes while I snuggle my pets, sip my coffee, and enjoy a good book. It’s the right amount of time for a chapter of most books, and if I need to extend it a few minutes to finish the chapter I’m in, going to thirty never seems like a big deal, even in the busy morning.
My other twenty-minute activity is yoga. On my days off from elliptical or hiking, I hop on YouTube and search for twenty-minute yoga sessions. I don’t like to do longer by myself at home (by the way I really miss studios and can’t wait to grab a membership this summer), but twenty minutes of stretch is satisfying. Also, I don’t mind trying out a new online teacher for twenty minutes. If we don’t click, then I don’t feel like I’ve sacrificed too much of my time to work with them.
Twenty minutes is my favorite amount of time for trying something new. What can you learn to do in twenty minutes? Let me know on Instagram @nowthatimnotyourteacher and be sure to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting app.