How to turn any wasted day into a productive one

Where does time go during the day

There are 24 hours in a day, or 1440 minutes. On average, a person sleeps about 8 hours, which means that we have 16 free hours when we are awake. Let's reduce this number by another 7-8 hours, because most of them work according to the standard schedule. And now we have 8-9 hours at our disposal.

A significant part of this time is spent on ordinary life - shopping, household chores, food, looking after loved ones who need care. Of course, it all depends very much on cultural differences. For example, residents of France, Greece, Italy and Spain spend more time for food than other Europeans.

In addition, there is a significant difference with regard to the so-called unpaid worksuch as housework or caring for other people. Researchers figured outthat women around the world spend 2-10 times more time on unpaid work than men. This affects the amount of free time for people of different sexes. For example, in Norway and New Zealand the difference is negligible, while in Portugal and India men have 50% more free time than women.

What is the 5 hour rule

So, everyone has the same number of hours in the day, and what we do during these hours often depends on culture and gender. At the same time, some people have more free hours than others, but any person still has at least a few hours that he can spend at his own discretion. And how he spends those hours can determine which group he ends up in: those who are successful or those who are mediocre. This is the basis of the 5 o'clock rule.

In one form or another, many successful people adhere to this rule today, for example Elon Musk or Bill Gates, and the first was Benjamin Franklin, who set aside at least an hour a day to learn something new. That's the idea: spend one hour a day learning, reflecting, and introspecting. If you do this from Monday to Friday, those same 5 hours will be typed.

The 5-hour rule gives the brain the necessary training, develops abilities and teaches discipline. It helps to gain not only new knowledge, but also new skills.

How to use the 5 hour rule

When we come home after a long day, tired and with a buzzing head, most often we want to reach for the TV remote control, and not for a volume of Tolstoy. But the 5 hour rule has three principles that aren't too hard to follow.

1. Learn. As you know how and how you like it - read books, listen podcasts, watch educational videos, study interesting popular science articles.
2. Experiment. Getting better doesn't mean stuffing your head with facts. Successful people didn't find the magic treasure—they tried to do something, failed, and tried again. Journalist and economist Tim Harford in his book “Through failures to victory” leads to the following principles of success: first, to offer and experience new things; secondly, to do it on such a scale that failure does not become a disaster; third, use feedback and learn from your mistakes. Try doing something out of the ordinary. Try doing something familiar in a different way. You will enjoy and learn a lot.
3. Reflect. Failure is a valuable source of information that helps improve our future. Every failure brings us one step closer to victory. Choose the reflection method that suits you. You can keep a personal diary or discuss in detail with loved ones what went wrong and why. When we reflect on our mistakes, we turn failures into learning experiences.