As a student, there is no such thing as ‘free time’. The time you think is ‘free’ – you could actually be using to do something else that is productive, such as finding a book on the course reading list, writing up notes or reviewing the last lecture. Every minute we are encouraged to cram more and more activities in, more socialising, more studying, but there are only so many minutes in a day.

As much as I advocate slowing down and doing less, sometimes it isn’t possible in a student’s hectic lifestyle, especially during exam times. I consider myself a bit of a minimalist, stuffing more isn’t really my thing, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, so here are some of my favourite hacks to try to cram more minutes into each day.

1. Read when cooking. There’s a lot of waiting when you’re cooking. Most people flip the tv on, or have a day dream, but I recommend bringing a book into the kitchen and get a few paragraphs done whilst waiting for that pasta to become al dente. Also applies for toilet breaks and long queues.

2. Group activities together. Part of David Allen’s famous Getting Things Done method involves grouping tasks that are in the same context together to save time doing them. For example, if you have to boot up your laptop to do something, why not wait until you have two or three things to do and then you only have to turn on your laptop once to do them all. This may sound obvious, but it does require a little bit of organizational skill in that you have to think ahead to make sure you haven’t left anything out, especially if you’re going to make a trip to a particular place. It’s no good getting halfway back home from X and then remembering  you had one more thing to do! Which brings me to…

3. Write things down. Maybe it’s the people I hang around with (or me) but you’ll be amazed at the number of times I’m walking around campus with someone who suddenly ‘just remembered’ they had to collect or hand in something and turn in the direction we just came. One of my friends even spent one whole day mumbling “I know there’s something I have to do today…” (It turned out she had to ask our lecturer something important, but by then the lesson had already finished and we were on the other side of campus). By jotting things down on a daily basis you can save countless minutes from trying to recall all of the things you had to do.

4. Listen to podcasts. Ok, this one doesn’t save you time, but it’s a way to fill up those idle minutes. It’s no secret that I love podcasts. The best ones are educational and intellectually stimulating. They could be news in an area you are interested in, or debates and discussions around your degree. There’s so much stuff out there, I’ve dipped into so many different subjects, including (and not limited to) economics, astronomy, travel, philosophy, history, nutrition,  Zen,…you can even learn languages via podcasts. They’re a great alternative to looping the same album (however amazing) on your ipod whilst walking or waiting for the bus. Please remember to look out for traffic!

5. Be minimalist. Yes, you knew it was coming. In this case by minimalism I mean having fewer things, which generally means you will be in a much tidier environment. You will save minutes if not hours if you can find everything and anything you need because it’s not lost under a pile of clothes or crumpled at the bottom of your bag. Find a place for all of the things you need everyday. For my keys, I actually hacked a key hook using some blue tak and a piece of wire (the kind you get wrapped around cables of electronics) shaped into a ‘J’. I stick it just above the handle of my door, so I always know where they are. Try to keep sheets and notes as organised as possible, or at least keep them all in one place, so you don’t spend ages looking around for them.

With these tips, you can probably save upwards of ten minutes a day, which doesn’t sound like much, but could add up to an extra hour or two every week.  At the moment, I’m conducting a bit of a hack-slash-experiment which I am trying to reclaim up to an hour and a half each day, but more of that coming soon…

If you’ve just joined Minimal Student, or just want to read more, why not have a look at my current series, The Recipe for Student Success, or check out the Most Popular MS Posts.

• The Recipe for Student Success – Ingredient One : Real Passion
• The Recipe for Student Success – Ingredient Two : Perseverance
• The Recipe for Student Success – Ingredient Three :  Great Health
• The Recipe for Student Success – Ingredient Four :  A Curious Mind

Since starting Minimal Student almost three years ago now, I have never taken more than a few weeks off at a time, but after coming back to England and settling in my own place, and no longer travelling as much as I used to, I felt that my writing had run out of steam. In January, I took a hiatus so that I could rearrange my thoughts and priorities, and hopefully come back a better writer.

To achieve this, I took the rather unusual approach of learning how to reflect about myself – without using any words at all.

Words are concrete, specific and tangible, but in reality, our emotions and feelings are not. I realise now that it is very difficult to convey even a fraction of who and what we are and how we feel in words – most people can only speak or write well enough to reveal the tip of the iceberg of themselves. And even if we could, we can never guarantee that others would understand. Humans are complex and irrational creatures, many of our actions are self-justified, illogical, unreasonable, or simply make no sense to others but ourselves.

So I decided to go back to the beginning, scrap all I knew about writing and start again. I emptied my cup. I turned off the computer, and sat my ass down on a pillow for a few moments each day. It wasn’t easy at first, I helplessly watched my mind jump around like an agitated squirrel trapped in a cage. But eventually I learned to embrace my energetic mind, and to observe myself without attachment or judgement – I learned to let go.

My break from writing taught me that there’s a lot to be said for putting down the pen and just being. Without words, there are no expectations, preconceptions, nothing to show or prove to anybody else, no gray areas and nothing to hide behind.

After a few months, my journey led here – back to writing again. But this time, it is clear that my style has evolved into a way of expressing myself that I feel touches something much deeper within. With practice, I hope I can continue to grow enough to be able to make sense of topics that are very difficult to explain, but too important to ignore.

It’s an ambitious task, but I like to think of it as a challenge.

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“Cogito Ergo Sum” – “I think, therefore I am”. – Rene Descartes

When it came to naming this ingredient, I considered calling it a ‘Great Mind’. But I thought that would imply that one needed to achieve or find ‘great’ things that rocked the world in order to be successful, when the truth is, success can mean so many things including, in my opinion, that you don’t necessarily have to make an amazing realization or discovery in order to be successful. Also, I realized that ‘great’ in a way means ‘better than someone else’. I am a firm believer that you do not need to trample or compete with others in order to be successful. And then the perfect term hit me. A Curious Mind.

A Curious Mind is unique. It’s not a passive thing that happens in your brain, neither are you born with one, you have to actively desire it and train yourself in order to obtain one. A Curious Mind is:

1. Hungry. A Curious Mind always wants more. It never gets tired of being fed, and will take a starter, snack, main and dessert when it comes to learning. It loves to discover, especially things it has never considered before. It lives on the edge of what it knows and what it can do, and endeavours to push itself even further.

2. Open. A Curious Mind is always open to new ideas and ways of seeing things. Sure, it can have opinions, but it allows others to have theirs, and will always try to see things from their point of view.  A Curious Mind considers many possibilities before deciding which path to follow. It is open to changing attitudes and doesn’t let others dictate what it believes.

3. Balanced. A Curious Mind tries to keep a balance between all of the things that concern it. It will have interests, and can focus on those, but will not neglect other important things either. It is calm, yet sharp. It thinks before it leaps. It’s decisive yet it considers other options. It is can make rational and logical decisions, but it can also be passionate and creative.

How to Cultivate a Curious Mind

1. Read. The single most important thing you can do to cultivate a Curious Mind is to read. Not only books, but also blogs, websites, Wikipedia, ebooks, magazines, newspapers and textbooks. In fact, reading is so important, here are three further tips to help:

• Diversify. Try reading things outside of your comfort zone to expand your general knowledge. Can you imagine not having tried chocolate before? You would be missing out! There is so much knowledge out there, it doesn’t make sense to only stay in one area. Who knows, you may end up finding something new and fascinating.
• Focus. Having said that, it might also be good to have a subject that you concentrate a bigger proportion of reading time to. If you spend between 30-45 minutes a day reading, that equates to about one book a week, which can make you an expert in a subject in a year. If it sounds too much to you, even two or three years isn’t that long if it means being a pro at something. Sometimes it helps to have a solid foundation of knowledge as well as a good general knowledge, otherwise you might end with too many half-eaten cakes. (Ok, obviously I am very hungry right now).
• Write it down. As much as I don’t like to admit it, we tend to forget most of the things we read. Keeping a reading notebook can really help you retain some of the information you invested those hours into. It doesn’t have to be entire chapter summaries, sometimes a few quotes or lines that you liked will suffice to remind you of a fact that surprised you, or an interesting plotline or a character you liked.

The same rules also applies to listening to podcasts. Podcasts and audiobooks are fantastic ways for you to ‘read’  and gain knowledge if you feel you don’t have too much time to physically sit down with a book often enough.

2. Meet people. Try to meet new people who are different from you, make friends with them and ask them about their background, opinions and ideas. Don’t be too nosey if they feel uncomfortable, but most of the time people are more than happy to talk, chat and debate. Don’t ignore cultural differences, use them to your advantage to open up your mind to new ways of thinking.  A lot of the things we believe in are because of the way we were raised, our society or our early education. We were conditioned to think that way, so we hadn’t had the chance to make up our own minds, until now. Experiences like this can turn things you were so sure about upside down, and that’s a good thing.

3. Meditate. Sometimes, our minds get slowed down from jumping from thought to thought constantly. You can get a more balanced mind by clearing up some of the clutter. There are lot’s of different types of meditation, but contrary to popular belief, it isn’t about pushing all thoughts out of your head. Instead, it is about becoming aware and acknowledging when your mind has wondered off and bringing it back to the centre. With practice, meditation can help you control your mind to be calmer, more stable and less easily distracted.

4. Sleep. In a way, your mind is like your body, you have to wake it up in the morning, feed it and let it grow. But you also have to let it rest. Olympic athletes have the healthiest bodies in the world, but even they don’t spend all their time training. They have to let their bodies recover and rest often, and your mind works in a similar way. Sleeping and napping can help you feel energized, and make your mind more receptive. Sleep can also greatly help with retention and recall.

Fairly obviously, we are here at university as students to grow our minds. However, there are two ways of going about it, one is passively letting knowledge seep into our minds, with only what people decide to tell us making up what we know and think. Or, we can seek to develop a Curious Mind, one that pro-actively seeks to find things that build discipline, character and imagination.

I’d love to hear what you think, do you consider a Curious Mind important to success? Let me know in the comments!

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• The Recipe for Student Success – Ingredient Three :  Great Health

Oh, snow. It’s pretty at first, but then it turns grey and slushy, getting into your shoes and freezing your toes. Then there’s the winter wind that makes your nose turn red and your eyes start to water.

In Japan, the cherry blossoms came to mark the beginning of spring. The air is warm with the smell of flowers and grass, and there’s no better way to spend an afternoon than to stroll under the trees, with the sound of a river trickling alongside you, and delicate petals falling in the gentle breeze.

Both snow and the cherry blossoms are very different. One marks winter, the bitter cold that causes things to die or hide away, and the other spring, the season of birth and life.

They are both painful and beautiful in their own way. They both mark the passing of time; a season starts, a season ends. A new year becomes an old year.

The Japanese people have a tradition of having a picnic under the trees because the blossoms only last a few days, before all of the petals have fallen and the trees are bare again.

On the other hand, I know from experience that there aren’t many things that feel better than jumping into a pile of brand new snow, soft and freshly laid, ready for you build a snowman from, or make snowballs to throw at your friends.

How often can we enjoy nature’s beauty like this?

We need to learn how to appreciate each and every moment in the same way. In spring, summer, autumn or winter. Even if it is pouring down outside, or snowing, or sunny and clear, whatever the weather. Doesn’t it make you feel more alive?

Time passes. This is the truth that a lot of people don’t like to think about. They deny it, and avoid talking about it, but ignoring it won’t make it go away.

Is it really morbid? Or, does it, on the contrary, cause you to make more of the moment?You enjoy life more, because you know that you will only get a few chances to do so. Living in denial will only mean wasting it.

So go, my dear, play in the snow, bask in the sunshine, run in the rain. Be bold, be brave, be strong, and live.

A question that I often ask myself is why on earth am I leading a minimalist lifestyle? Why don’t I just settle down in a nice town, get my own apartment, a steady job and live like a normal person?

The answer is simple, I don’t want to be normal.

I want to travel. I want to see the world.  I want to go to places people don’t go, meet people that have stories to tell, see things with my own eyes, not from the other side of a TV screen.

I want to grab a backpack, climb mountains, hike through forests, camp under the stars, explore. I want to get on a bike and ride my way across highways, along rivers, through small towns and beside farmland as as far as the eye can see.

On my travels I want to help people who need real help, real action, not just cash thrown at them. I want to make a positive impact on every single soul I meet on the road.

Minimalism is my means of doing that, which is why it’s so important to me. Without it, I can’t do it.

Do you have to travel to have achieved something? Of course not, this is just my dream. You can fulfill your dreams right in your hometown if you want to, the point is that you do it. It sounds simple enough, but you’ll be surprised at how many dreams get pushed aside for mortgages, debt and nice shoes.

when fear is good

I thought my biggest motivation was the want to travel. But now I realize, travel is only the answer to my biggest fear. I’m afraid that I’ll grow old and waste my life. I’m afraid that I’ll look back and wonder why I didn’t do something worthwhile when I had the chance. I’m scared that I’ll miss great opportunities because I followed what people told me to do instead of deciding on my own.

I’m scared that I won’t make a real difference.

Travelling around the world might sound like a fantasy for some people, but to them I say it doesn’t sound possible because they’re too wrapped up in watching reruns on TV from being tired from working too much to fund all of their spending habits.

I’m not living to work or to buy things, I’m living to live. That’s my motivation.

What’s yours?

Last month, it snowed. A lot. This photo was the view outside my dorm. It had been piling up for a few days, and got pretty deep. One morning, I was rushing to university when I very nearly fell flat on my face. Thankfully I saved my dignity by doing an ungracious twirl with about the skill of a ballerina with two left feet. Luckily, I was with a friend to laugh it off with.

Just a few minutes before I had been complaining about how sick of the snow I had become. That’s when I realised.

The good things in life, the things we love and enjoy, we cherish them because they don’t come around very often.

Even the little things that pass us by everyday without us noticing.

We play in the snow like kids and have snowball fights because the roads and gardens are only covered in a beautiful white blanket of snow once a year, if that.

We feel a bit superhuman when we manage to pass a green light, or reach the crossing just when the green man shows, only because most of the time it is red.

We bathe in the sun, have picnics and go for walks in the summer because it’s hot, and because it’s not summer all year around.

We can’t help smiling when our favourite song comes on the radio, because most of the time they’re playing something else.

We laugh when someone tells a good joke, because it’s hard to find a good one you haven’t heard before.

We love weekends, because they come less often than weekdays.

We love our mother’s cooking because there is only one place you can have it, at home.

We love our friends and partners because there is nobody else in the world quite like them.

How often do we forget to celebrate these tiny victories?

We can’t have our favourite dessert all day everyday because then it wouldn’t be our favourite any more. We love the things we love, because we don’t have them very much or often. That’s what makes them special.

Minimalism is about having fewer things – so we can cherish each and every one of them. Appreciate their usefulness, design, durability, versatility and value.

Did something happen to you today that made you smile?

Inspired by 1000 Awesome things blog

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Chopsticks. Right now, millions of people are digging into their food with two sticks that have stood the test of time as a utensil for humans, even when countless thousands of other tools, gadgets and products haven’t. But what’s so special about them?

What can we learn from mere chopsticks?

Personally, I have used them all my life, but it was only recently I realised the depth of influence they had in many people’s way of life. They teach us the importance of:

1. Simplicity. They can come in all kinds of colours and sizes but essentially they are just two long sticks. There’s hardly anything more simple than two bits of wood being pushed together. With new technology being released everyday and adverts bombarding us with the need to be able to do more with less, multi-tasking and multiple-use devices, it is sort of refreshing to still have something which has just one use – simply to eat. Chopsticks are a living example that simplicity simply works, and we don’t need to keep developing, improving and fixing things all the time.

2. Versatility. Chopsticks can be used for picking up all kinds of food; meat, veg, rice, even the bones from fish, because by nature, their simplicity means that they are adaptable. Instead of aiming for a niche in an attempt to find a ‘gap in the market’, or to fill a hole that probably doesn’t need filling, they cater to a wide range purposes. Imagine being like chopsticks in this way, able to appeal to many people because you are useful, without worrying about being ‘more innovative’ or ‘better’ in anyway. They just do what they are made to do, they just are.

3. Aim. If you’ve ever tried using them, you know that you can’t get what you want by just haphazardly stabbing at the plate. To be able to get what you want, you have to aim for it. There’s no way you can pick up everything in one go. Know what you want, and just do it. Sometimes, a little bit of focus makes the difference between failure and success.

4. Practice. Using chopsticks doesn’t come naturally. You have to learn to use them and practice it. But how will you learn? Should you just read about it? Most would agree that there’s no better way to practice than to look at the delicious food in front of you and tell yourself  that you can’t have any until you can use the chopstick to get it. In real life, you can read as much as you like about all the things you want to do, but it will just amount to dreams and theory if you don’t try actually doing it. Don’t just watch others eating, put yourself out there and give the chopsticks a go.

5. Slowing Down. A common health tip is to try to eat with chopsticks when you can. Why? Because it slows you down and allows your stomach to tell your brain your’re full before you overeat. Eating with chopsticks is a slower process, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes we need to slow down and take things one step at a time, break it down at each stage so that we have time to think, to realise that we’re actually full and that we don’t have to keep charging full speed through life.

Sometimes it’s nice to enjoy each morsel of life as it comes.