#118 - How to Implement What You're Learning

So how do you implement while learning instead of constantly learning with zero implementation? Hi, my name is Shelley Hitz, and I help writers take a step of faith and finally finish their book so that you can impact lives. And in each of my Ask Shelley episodes, I promise to share at least one thing that will help you to write, self publish and market your books so that the message of your books can reach more readers. And this is a great question, like, how to implement what while learning instead of constantly learning with zero implementation? There is so much content available this day and age. There's so much. It's not just blog posts, but it's every social media platform. It's all the courses, it's all the things. Like, there's just so much. And so, first of all, I would say focus on one main goal at a time. And so, like, if you are focused on writing your book right now and getting it done, then you may want to unsubscribe or just, you know, mute or delete some of the things or save for later. The stuff about marketing, you know, sometimes we're trying to do the thing that's like 10 steps ahead instead of doing the thing that we need to do right now. And right now you've got to get your book out of your head and onto paper or you can't do anything with the marketing later on. I mean, you can build a platform, but then what are you going to do? Sell them, you know, what are you going to offer them? And so make sure that you have one main focus at a time. And I like to have seasons. So I have seasons where I'm learning a specific task or skill or thing. And I take multiple courses, I read multiple books or I listen to podcasts and I do things. And it's kind of an intensive, is what I think of. But focus on one main goal at a time. What is it you're really wanting to learn right now? Not to say you can't learn those other things too, but the majority of your learning time, say the 8020 rule, let's say 80% of your learning is going to be on that one main thing. So that you're not getting this bright shining object syndrome is what we call it, or the squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel, Squirrel. And you're learning about Pinterest one day, and then you're learning about.

Writing productivity the next day, and then you're learning about all the different publishing options the next day. And it's like all of these things. But what do you need to do right now? What is your Very next tiny step. So in Christian Book Academy, we have what are called progress pods, and it's for accountability, but also encouragement and almost like a little mini mastermind. And they're peer led and it's a place where you can meet weekly and you just, you determine, like, what is my next tiny step. And the leader will help you to do that. But if that's something that you think could help you to really stay focused, we would love to have you join us at ChristianBookAcademy.com and join one of our progress pods. So, number one, stay focused on one main goal at a time. Number two, establish a routine of when you're going to learn and when you're going to implement. So I have recently talked to one of our Christian Book Academy members about this and I really encouraged her to set aside one main day of the week for learning. Say, this is my learning day and this is like Christmas. It's like the fun time, because when we learn new things, it fires off the good chemicals in our brain. I'm not sure if it's dopamine or what it is, but we get these good chemicals and it feels good and we're learning something new, but then we kind of lose some of those chemicals when we start to implement. And so we're like, oh, this feels hard. And then we go on to learn something new because all those good chemicals fire off. But then if you say, okay, I'm going to have Saturdays or Mondays or whatever day you want it to be, be my learning day, then that's almost like opening a gift Christmas Day. You know, it's like, it can be that fun day when you get to learn, you get to do some reading or take a course or whatever. And then the other days are dedicated to implementing what you're learning, are dedicated to doing the writing. And so I would recommend not having more than one or two days that are devoted to the learning and have the rest of the days devoted to the implementation. And then, you know, establish a routine. You know, establish a routine of telling your brain, you know, these are the days, or this is the day that I'm going to be learning and now I'm going to be implementing. I recommend using the Pomodoro technique. When you're implementing, it's just using a simple timer and literally set a timer in front of you on your phone, on the computer. And I have this little one that I've gotten from Amazon and you can flip it and it will automatically start at a certain time. But, but when I Have things that I'm resisting. I literally will just flip and I'll turn that timer on and I'll tell my brain, alright, we're going to focus on this for this amount of time. The Pomodoro typically is 25 minutes of focused writing or work and then 5 minutes break. But in Christian Book Academy we use this in our virtual writing retreats. So we have two day virtual writing retreats every month and we do it for 50 minutes, 5 o' clock and then a 10 minute break. And I found that with most writers that time frame works the best unless you have, you know, ADHD or add. Then typically a shorter time period will work better, at least from what I've heard from our members of Christian Book Academy. But set a timer and tell your brain like, okay, we're going to implement this, we're going to do this thing. And again, if you need accountability, Christian Book Academy is a great place to get the help to actually implement. Not only do we have the progress pods for accountability, but we have our two day virtual writing retreat every month. It's on a Friday and a Saturday. So even if you work full time, you can still come one of the days or if you prefer to come during the week, you can come on Friday during the week. And then we have our 15 minute writing challenge every month. And so this is a way just to get a little more micro boost of like, okay, I'm going to get going and sometimes if you sit down and just, you know, to implement for 15 minutes, to write for 15 minutes, it's going to get the ball rolling and then you'll find that you'll do even more. Our members love the 15 minute challenge every month. They love the virtual writing retreat and so I encourage you to come check it out. Join us@christianbookacademy.com we would love to have you join us. But again, just to recap, focus on one main goal at a time. And literally I will unsubscribe from email lists. I will like unfollow people on social media during that time when I'm really focused. And then you can always come back and join the email list again. You can always come back and join those other things again. But if your inbox and your social media is flooded with all the other things, it may be hard to stay focused. So whatever works best for you. Try to focus on learning one main thing at a time. And then number two, consider setting aside one day a week to learn and then implementing in the other days. And then number three, establish a routine and consider using the Pomodoro technique. The timer works. It really does for 90% of people. And then we would love to have you join us in Christian Book Academy, where we have a lot of ways that we can just help you implement. And so we're just excited for you and I hope that this has helped again. My name is Shelly Hitz and the owner and founder of ChristianBookAcademy.com helping you to get your book out of your head and onto paper.