My physical training and exercise routine conflicts with my writing in terms of my desire to do both early in the morning; and writing usually wins out. I have written 350,000 words between books and blogs in the 2013, which meant I did far less exercise than I should have.
Writing still rules the day in the early morning. However, during the day in addition to writing books, I need to spend a lot of time writing blogs, doing social media and training to develop my skill set as I came to writing later in life. I have taken the route of being an independent writer and publisher which requires more design and technical skills than if I was working through a traditional publishing house. I have been studying a great deal, including general design and writing courses, HTML/CSS and PHP training, WordPress training, SEO and social media, and learning the Adobe suite of products. This has taken a massive amount of time. I have used mostly Lynda.com, but also am using Udemy more frequently now. (A review of training approaches to consider for skills development will be posted next week.)
But my fitness was worsening and becoming a limiting factor in how much I could work each day, inhibiting the time I sat at a computer and typed. My general health while not bad, was declining and needs more constant attention now that I am over 60. I have the equipment at home to use, but was not using it as I was rationalizing not finding the time to exercise when I had writing or skill training activities which required attention and they were requiring full-time attention!
Then I was struck by an idea which I had implemented for business, which was to get an adapter (iPad to HDMI) for my iPad so I could do PowerPoint and other presentations from my iPad to the large screen instead of having to bring my laptop along. I decided to see how that would work by hooking my iPad to the TV I had in front of my treadmill and possibly do skill training while doing physical training. It worked beautifully.
Some of my skill training like the Adobe product suite training requires me to be at a laptop to do exercises. But much of my general design training on typography, becoming an illustrator, and even programming concepts were lecture-based and perfect for viewing and learning while working on the treadmill. I would watch 30 minutes of training while getting in 30 minutes of exercise. I felt so much better after only a couple of days and did not have to choose one activity over the other.
So how did I add an hour to my day? The first was by getting the synergy benefit of doing 30 minutes skill training while doing 30 minutes physical training. The additional 30 minutes came from having much higher energy levels and being able to work much more effectively for an additional 30 minutes per day. This added an hour of productivity to each day.
This one simple change has me getting fitter, getting smarter and continuing to become a better writer! Next week I will provide an overview of the four main training models available to help you become a more skilled professional, regardless if you elect to do your training from the treadmill or not!
Steve Shipley, author of Wine Sense, due out early 2014
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Still Stupid at Sixty (published under my writing pseudonym Blake Stevens)
