The GrowMe 25 plan - 5 things you can do in 25 minutes or less every day for self-development

Big goals are realized in small steps. Now might be the perfect time to establish new small habits that will help lead to a much bigger outcome in the future. Regardless of your role, industry, or specific area of work, our lives have been disrupted to a point where everything feels a little awkward. This can be a difficult adjustment, but it is also an opportunity to establish routines, habits, and expectations for ourselves. This could be the right time to dream about a new future and what it will take to get there. It starts with believing that you can make a change for yourself that will take your future in new directions. That doesn’t mean it has to be a wholesale change of what you do or who you are. It can be about taking a big step forward in what is possible for you to achieve in the coming years.

The idea of starting small can be both rewarding and frustrating at the same time. Spending just twenty or twenty-five minutes a day doesn’t seem like much. That can feel like you are doing too little, yet it also feels possible. If I suggest setting aside twenty-five minutes a day for your own personal development that will amount to almost three hours every week or more than one-hundred and fifty hours every year. That is a powerful investment in yourself.

In the current environment of stay-at-home and reduced social contact, there are many ways to spend the time specifically for your self-development. I suspect that in the coming months, these will only grow. People will begin to shift their comfort to learning online, connecting to others via video, and find new ways to interact while maintaining social distancing.

Here are five things you can do in twenty-five minutes each day that will help you spend some of your time ensuring it is focused on your long-term growth and development. I recommend setting a timer to help you get started and stay as strict to that time as you can to develop the habit. As much as possible, keep the time of day the same as well so it can become something you expect to do each day around the same time. Building this time into your morning or evening routine might be the best place to have this time set aside.

1. Listen to a leadership podcast. There are many that share great lessons in less than 25 minutes. Split it over two or three days if it is a longer podcast.
2. Read a chapter in a book (or as many pages as you can in that time). Keep it simple - set the alarm and just enjoy what you can in that period of time. It doesn’t matter if you are a fast reader or not. This is about setting that time aside for reading. By the way - audiobooks count too. That is my preferred method of reading, so, twenty-five minutes of listening to a book works here too.
3. Read 2 articles you saved for yourself earlier in the day. This is a great way to use InstaPaper or Pocket, or any of the save later features your web browser might have.
4. Watch a TEDTalk or other videos from a training site. Take notes and review them. Most TEDTalks are 18 minutes or less. Perfect for watching the video and then taking 5 minutes to reflect, make notes, or review. Many online training sites have the courses set up in small chapters. This makes it easy to watch a video or two in short periods of time.
5. Pick a subject you want to learn more about and spend 25 minutes a day doing research and learning. It doesn’t have to be specifically about management or leadership. Find a topic that you have always wanted to know more about and dive in. Schedule this out for a month or a quarter, however long you think you will need to get the learning you want. You can always extend the time or reduce it later once you have begun your in-depth journey. For me, this subject might be meteorology. I have always been fascinated with weather, the changes in atmospheric pressure, and how that creates the weather we experience.

In my article Build a Mind, Body, Do Plan for Your Self-Care in the New Year, I wrote about defining your development areas into three domains. You can develop yourself in the area of mind (intellectual learning), body (physical aspects of your body and self), and doing (activities and movement). Spreading your time across these three areas can help to keep your activities fresh and interesting. Your twenty-five minutes each day does not always need to be on the same subject or the same medium. Read one day and watch a video the next. Concentrate on an interesting hobby two days this week, while listening to podcasts on another three days. Changing things up and having a schedule for what you are going to do each day will give you something to look forward to, while also knowing you have a plan ahead of time for what you will be spending your time on each day.

Consistency is key. It is less about the specific time you invest. If you only have fifteen minutes, use that. Don’t push yourself too far where the habit cannot become established or you end up dreading or resenting the time you are forcing yourself into. Make it fit your schedule and your needs for right now. You can always make adjustments later. Having a commitment to it each day will ensure that you are moving forward and towards the outcome you have set for yourself. Referring back to the earlier math - twenty-five minutes a day can become one-hundred and fifty hours each year. Think about the number of books that can be read, the number of videos watched, or the new ideas and learning that can be absorbed across that time. It can make a huge difference for you.

Where will you begin your twenty-five minute a day journey?

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