Benjamin Franklin once said, “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” We make excuses why we can’t squeeze another task into a day, especially when it comes to learning. We treat learning like we do exercising; we’ll get to it when we can. Eventually, a lack of learning, like exercising, will lead to the terminal illness of your career. It’s more effective to work out for 20 minutes, 5 days per week than it is to work out once for 9 hours straight. Sadly, we think we have to lock ourselves up in a room and cram for 9 hours straight, instead of chunking it into small 20 minute daily sessions. There’s a difference in having no time versus know time. Knowing when and how to spend it will bring you more consistent results. Is it possible to have your cake and eat it too? Absolutely! It is possible to watch your favorite NFL football game and squeeze in a few minutes of training-after all, an average NFL football game is played in just 11 minutes!

Recently, The Wall Street Journal published an article breaking down an entire NFL broadcast game. Here are the results:

• 11 minutes of actual playing time (the typical play lasts 4 seconds)
• 17 minutes of instant replays
• 67 minutes of players standing around
•    3 seconds of cheerleaders
• 60 minutes of commercials

Never fear, you won’t miss a single down, replay, booth review, nor sideline shot. Instead of sitting on the couch, like every other salesperson, being pitched by an hour’s worth of commercials, grab your smart phone, ipod, or journal and invest 1200 seconds into getting ahead in your career. Do what others won’t, so you can become what they’ll never be. By the way, your pizza is ready.