Applications of TGIM August 18, 2014

APPLICATIONS
OF TGIM
Time Management

Introduction
I had this idea, right. Over the past 10 years, Ive learned so much from a number of speakers and
teachers and success stories I looked up to. Ive looked up to Anthony Robbins, Eben Pagan aka
David DeAngelo, Eric Thomas, Giavanni Ru!n, David Shands, Jenny Mourey, Peter Sage, Dan
Pea, Emily Brooke of Blaze.
Ive learned so much about personal development,
about how to live life.
And so I had this idea, right. I wanted a way to give back.
I keep a personal journal and so I remember, September 28, 2012, the thing that changed my life,
the one thing that changed my life was the Secrets to Success video from Eric Thomas. And from
then on, every week, every Monday, Eric Thomas was there for me, as a coach, doing a series of
videos called Thank God Its Monday (TGIM).
From September 28, 2012, TGIM and Eric Thomas videos changed my life for the better.
So this is how I see it, right? My way of giving back is to share with you, share with the world, how
all that wisdom changed my life, and what I did exactly to get to where I am today.
There are the Thank God Its Monday TGIM videos and this is, what I call, the Applications of TGIM,
how I myself had gone from principle to action.
Im going to call this Applications of TGIM.
Hear me out. Its August 18, 2014. Summer is going to be over and many of our younger students,
and older students, are going to be starting the new school semester. Its what Eric Thomas calls,
Third quarter living.
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Applications of TGIM August 18, 2014
I am a physicist, my background is in physics, I graduated out of Caltech, I recently got the Masters
degree out of LMU Munich, and so for the students, I want to be your TA, I want to be your tutor. I
want you to know that you can start from the bottom, and that you could get to the top and you can
nish strong this semester, this coming school year. And Im going to share my example, my
experience, all the wisdom Ive picked up, encourage you, and my hope is that you can take it, run
with it, apply some of the action steps I took, and take it even further. I want to keep each other
accountable and go from principle to application, to action.
So whats the rst principle? Whats the very rst principle that singlehandedly changed my results
that Winter semester of 2012/2013 after I rst watched Eric Thomas videos, going from only
passing 1 class a semester to passing all 4 classes that semester that I needed, when 2 Masters
classes a semester was the average?
Its two words:
Time management.
Principle
And at this point, I encourage you to watch the Sleep is 4 Suckers video called The Mission, with
Eric Thomas and David Shands, the founder of Sleep is 4 Suckers. I watched that video at least
twice a week before the semester started in 2012 and all throughout the semester. Why? It was
because it was all about time management and the importance of time.
Sleep is 4 Suckers the Mission ft. Eric Thomas
David Shands, founder of Sleepis4Suckers
http://youtu.be/hEgtTEz8EhA

See, I am not a smart person. And physics and math are hard. I know that I am a slow learner, that
I take up with my mom. My mom is deliberate, meticulous, but things slowly and carefully. Shes
the opposite of my dad. And so, coming into the 2012 school semester, if I was going to pass the 4
Masters classes I needed, I knew that I had to manage my time wisely. And thats why the video
resonated with me so much.
Its what David Shands said,
Time management. You cant waste time. You dont
have much time. Trade some of those time that you
spend idle, pursuing your goals, things could change.
You dont just build a house in a day, you lay one good
brick a day.
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You say, yep, instead of 8 hours, Ill sleep 7 hours, I use
that hours, for promotion for my website, or for my
music, or whatever.
Right, because we are all equal in that everyone has the same number of hours in a day, modulo
special relativity, on this planet. Eric Thomas goes on to say that
Sleep is the new broke,
because what happens is,
if you have only 24 hours in a day, your success is
dependent upon how you use your 24.
The only di"erence between Oprah and the person who
is broke is Oprah uses her 24 hours wisely. Thats it.
And Eric Thomas continues to say,
I could tell you all about your life, if you just write down
your 24 hour schedule for me, and let me look at it
I could tell you where you would be 5 years, 10 years, in
20 years,
if you keep that schedule.
When I was broke, if you looked at my schedule, youll
see that, I woke up whenever I felt like waking up.
I studied the top millionaires in the world, and I
discovered that they woke up at 3 or 3:30 am in the
morning.
If theyre getting up at 3 or 3:30 and everybody else was
getting up at 8 or 8:30
the reason why theyre successful is not because theyre
smart,
the reason theyre successful is that they have a 5 hour
jump on the world.
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I wanted that 5 hour jump on my classmates, and on my instructors; I wanted that 5 hour jump
because I know I needed the extra time, as a slow learner, to have extraordinary results that
semester.
Applications
So how do we go from principle to application?
Heres the way I see it. First things rst, each person is di#erent. Each person learns in di#erent
ways, each person thinks and acts di#erently from the other person. The principle of time
management is universally important, you dont have much time, but the application can be
di#erent. One thing that works for a lot of success people is that they write down explicitly their
schedule, and when they write it down, they get committed. There are now an amazing numbers of
apps and programs on a mobile phone, smart phone, your computer, where one could schedule
and manage their time.
What worked for me, what did it for me was a change in mindset, a change in how I looked at how I
spent my time, and how I was going to put forth full e#ort, a change in my mindset that led me to
maximize all the time I had in a day towards my goal, which was to pass all the classes I set out to
do that semester.
A part of that change in mindset was this, and Im going to reference Eric Thomas book, the
Secrets to Success, in his Chapter 18.
I was all too familiar with the kind of commitment you
had to make and the amount of time you had to devote
to your studies in order to do well. My poor study habits
were another concern. As long as I could remember, I
was never a serious student; I just went to school and
never had a real love for learning. My friend Lois, she
had that love for academics. When we would go bowling
on the weekends she brought her textbooks to the
bowling alley. I remember thinking, Who does that?
Who brings their books to a bowling alley? Between
frames, she would grab her highlighter and start taking
some serious notes or reviewing ashcards. It never
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dawned on me that thats what real students do; they
study. Students dont do it just for a letter grade or
numeric values; they study because its in them. Lois
might have taken breaks during her four year stay in
college, but I never saw it.
And that was the change in mindset - if I was going to be a scholar, I had to act and be a scholar.
And the time management followed.
What did I do exactly that semester?
This is a small example of my schedule, every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, every week for the 12
week semester:
On Monday, I get up at around 5:30 am, brush my teeth, shower, warm up some jambalaya, catch
the train from Augsburg by 6:39 am, to arrive at 7:38 am in Munich, so to have enough time to walk
to the Math Institute from the train station or Hauptbahnhof, to be seated in time for my String
Theory class at 8 am.
String Theory class at 8 am to 10 am.
After String Theory class ends, I head straight to the computer room, saving me time from heading
over to the library, and I study; its the most quiet place in the building for students without an o!ce
as students are using computers.
Algebraic Topology class from 12 pm to 2 pm. Then for 2 hours, I go straight to the computer room
and study.
I have TA sessions or what they call Exercise sessions or Tutoring sessions over there at LMU for
Di#erential Geometry from 4 to 6 pm with Dr. James Gray, my favorite instructor who had been at
LMU.
6 pm, I walk across the intersection of Theresienstrasse and Barer Strasse to the local, smaller
version of a supermarket chain Tengelmann, and I buy whatever salads, vegetables, fruits that were
in season and on sale, some yogurt, some cheeses, because I didnt have a lot or really any money,
take them with me, and Im back in the Math Institute a little before 7 pm; Im watching everyone,
students, instructors, professors, sta#, leave the Math Institute and building like clockwork, clocking
out for the day, while I nd a vacated classroom and commandeer it.
I can snack on the vegetables, fruits, yogurts, cheeses I bought while I had an uninterrupted block
of time to study and think, from 7 pm to 1:30 or 2 am. Thats 6 to 7 hours of uninterrupted study
and quiet thought. It was the best time of the day for me, as I took in all that I learned that day and
made it mine. And it was absolutely necessary for me.
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By 1:30 am or 2 am, I am exhausted, tired, and crash out on wherever I can. If Im lucky, and
someone left the faculty lounge open, Id sneak in and crash on a plush, leather couch. If not, I put
together 3 wooden chairs and lay down on it. If it was too cold outside during the winter, I found a
kitchen utility closet and slept against the wall.
That semester, I had set my alarm to 5:22 am everyday because that allowed me 8 minutes before
the daily university maintenance crew came in punctually like clockwork at 5:30 am, and I vacated.
I knew they clean the classrooms rst, so I head straight to the bathroom and brush my teeth and
wash up. By around 6:15 am, the janitor on the oor would have nished cleaning up the
classrooms, normally, and so Id move back over to an empty classroom to study.
Tengelmann is scheduled to open at 7:00 am, but the delivery trucks for fresh bread and produce
are coming in by 6:30 am and the workers are already leaving the automated doors open to let
deliveries come in and out of the front by 6:45 am. I sneak in and buy enough fruits and vegetables,
especially carrots and tomatoes that I could eat out of my hand and I wouldnt have to waste time to
cut or peel. The young German man delivering fresh baguettes sees me and drops me 3 or 4 in my
plastic bag. I buy whatever cheeses and sandwich meats that are on sale. I buy my food for the
day, hoping this older, but very pretty, and tanned Croatian brunette is working that day. I try to say
something in Croatian, even if its just Dobar den. Kako si? Hvala. Shes always smiling and always
cheerful.
Im out of there by 7 am and by 7 am, the computer rooms are open and so I would be in one of the
quiet, tucked away computer rooms to study, reviewing the notes and problems I worked out the
night before, preparing for the classes ahead, while stu!ng my piping hot baguettes with cheeses
and cold cuts and making mini sandwiches. There was no one, but the reassuring hum of
computers.
It was Tuesday, so I would have Di#erential Geometry at 10 am to 12 pm. I was in the building and I
was on time for class.
12 pm to 2 pm, I was in String Theory tutoring sessions.
2 pm to 4 pm, I had Quantum Electrodynamics.
From 4 pm, I go straight to the computer room to study until 6 pm, when I would head to
Tengelmann again to buy enough food and snacks for the nights uninterrupted study session.
7 pm to 1:30 or 2:00 am, I am inside a vacated classroom I had commandeered, studying.
Keep in mind that o!cially the Math Institute building closes at 10 pm and the doors are locked,
and so I am locked in; thats why I go to Tengelmann at 6 pm to stock up on everything that I need.
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5:22 am, after having passed out, I am up again, washing up in the bathroom, darting back into an
empty classroom, then heading to Tengelmann to buy food, hoping itd be open earlier that normally
they would and heading back into the computer room by 7 am.
By 8 am to 10 am, Wednesday, it was String Theory class. 10 am to 2 pm, I had time to study. I
would treat myself to lunch at noon, if I had the money, at either the pizza shop or the Asian
restaurant, Tokami, across the street. The Mensa, what they called the school cafeteria there, was 2
blocks away and I couldnt a#ord the time to walk over there and walk back - those minutes could
be spent studying, reviewing.
2 pm to 4 pm was Algebraic Topology. 4 pm to 5 pm was the very important Exercise class for
Di#erential Geometry, led by Carlos Ramos-Cuevas. With my classes ending at 5 pm on
Wednesday, I had some breathing room. Id still go to Tengelmann to stock up on fruits, lots of
bananas, oranges, apples, things I could eat, without peeling, on the y, carrots and tomatoes that I
could wash in the classroom sink and without peeling, yogurt, whatever was on sale, at 6 pm. I
would return back to the Math Institute and study for the night.
So lets do the math. I have 24 hours in a day. I prioritize my study time, especially that
uninterrupted block of studying and quiet thought, because theres where I made the ideas,
concepts, and problems from the lecture and books mine. I get 5 hours of study time during the
morning and daytime that is broken up, interrupted and about 6 hours of uninterrupted study time
for 11 hours. That leaves me with 13 hours.
I was committed to going to every class, every TA or tutoring session, that semester. Class time
was long at LMU. Each day, it takes about 7 hours. That leaves me with 6 hours.
Ive already cut out lunch, and I save as much time (and money, as an unsponsored Masters
student) by going to Tengelmann for food and eating it while studying. Of course I have to wash up
and brush my teeth in the university restroom. That is going to leave me only with 4 hours.
And so you could see, Im talking about giving up stu#. Time management. I knew that if I was to
become a scholar, I had to start acting like a scholar. I prioritize, I put study rst, my classes rst, I
was going to make it to every single class and TA session - that winter semester, I can tell myself
that I took advantage of every opportunity I was given with the lectures and the tutoring sessions.
But that meant that everything else became secondary; and I especially cut out commuting. And
sleep. It was knowing what was important and what came rst, and all my actions, and all the
sacrices I made, were all directly geared to the primary goal.
I didnt go into the Winter 2012/2013 semester with an explicitly written down schedule. If thats
something that works for you, I would encourage you to do that. What worked for me was a
change of mindset, that Sleep is 4 Suckers, that the only di#erence between me failing all my
classes or me passing all my classes was how I used my 24 hours, that I wanted that 5 hour jump
on the world.
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Time management.
Because all those minutes saved, they add up to hours, they add up to days, ahead of everyone
else, during the entire duration of the semester.
This week, if youre a student, and youre looking to make a change in your academics, I want you
to look at how you use your 24 hours and for you to prioritize your actions and whats important and
whats not important. I want to hold myself accountable, and so Ill do what I can to write down
how Im using my 24. You can nd me on gmail, Facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube, linkedin at
ernestyalumni
Watch The Mission youtube video from David Shands and Eric Thomas for Sleep is 4 Suckers. I
watched it over and over again that semester; it reminded me that what I was doing with time
management was the right path to be taking.
Time management: its not easy, but if it was easy, everybody would do it.
Finally, I want you to remember, never give up. Never give up. And like Eric Thomas says, Go
make the rest of your life, the best of your life.
Links and References

Sleep is 4 Suckers the Mission ft. Eric Thomas
David Shands, founder of Sleepis4Suckers
http://youtu.be/hEgtTEz8EhA


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