Yesterday was another one of those long days when I had to be up early so that I could get to a client on time to deliver a 3 hour seminar.  Then I had a long 4 hour drive to my next destination.  By the time I settled down to learning some Spanish it was late, I was tired and even though I wanted to learn I found the going tough and eventually gave up and had an early night.

All was not lost yesterday though because I had the trusty flash cards out at every opportunity and managed to squeeze in a couple of podcasts in the car as I travelled over the Penines.  The back bone of England certainly looked glorious in its autumnal colours.

Now contrast that with today.  I was up early, bit of exercise a quick shower and by 7.30 I was there with note book open, pen in hand.  I had a good hour learning some new stuff and reviewing some of the other stuff that I had learnt.  It was easy, I enjoyed it and got plenty of learning done.

The reason was that I was operating at my best time.  For me it is the morning, always has been and probably always will be.  Each of us have our own ideal time during the day when it is the best time for us to focus on our most important tasks.  For some, like me, it is the morning, for others, the afternoon but lots of people also prefer working into the evening, even late at night.

So what is your best time and how do you choose it?

Well think about this….when are you at your most alert, most awake, most alive and full of the most amount of energy?  It might vary a little depending upon what you are doing, but I am sure if you just monitor your alertness levels over a few days, you will spot a trend where a particular part of the day is the best for you.

This is your ideal time.

Now a good time NOT to do any work where you need to think and concentrate is immediately after a heavy meal.  When you have just eaten, lots of blood rushes to your stomach to help with the digestion process.  This blood is what usually takes oxygen to the brain and so with it being used for other purposes, less blood reaches our grey matter, which means less oxygen making us feel drowsy.  Moral of the story - learning Spanish will make you hungry:-)

What happens if you need to do some work and it isn’t at your best time?

Well that is a good question and the thing to realise is that you can still work at other times than your ideal time, it just won’t be as effective as when you are at your best.  But if you do find you have to work in these periods then you can enhance your learning state by doing a bit of exercise first - go for a walk or do something more energetic if you are up to it to get the muscles moving, the blood flowing and more oxygen rushing to the brain.

So learning to speak Spanish is best done at your ideal time (whenever that is) but enhancing your daily routine with exercise will allow you to make better use of the other times too.