Fitting It All In

As the old saying goes, "When you're up to your waist in alligators, it's hard to remember that your objective was to drain the swamp." When you're trying to learn to fly, manage a career or go to school full-time, devote the attention you should to your friends and family, and occasionally even put aside a quiet minute or two for yourself, do you ever recall that old alligator story?

If the answer is yes, don't feel like the Lone Ranger. You've got plenty of company, and there are ways to make it work. Allowing yourself to become over-committed is the best way I know of to make learning to fly tougher than it has to be. With a little help, you can organize both yourself and your life so that you can focus on a steady flight training program. Of course, getting organized is easier said than done.

Perhaps you're already involved in a flying course, but problems keep piling up while the time available to solve them shrinks. Maybe you haven't yet had your first lesson, but you know that you barely have time to get a haircut or fill up the car and you're wondering how you're going to fit flying into your complicated life. Either way, you can do it, but you must start by taking control. Why not attack learning to fly the same way you attack business or personal projects that are really important to you? Promise to give yourself every opportunity succeed, then make the time. Whether learning to fly is a lifelong dream, the beginning of your path to a new career, or just an idea that excites you, it's a goal worth pursuing.

If you really want to fly, the solution is to shuffle priorities and incorporate whatever changes are necessary to make time for training. If you've decided to begin now - or stick with your training despite the odds - my hat's off to you. You can make it work with seven simple steps:

1. Analyze how you spend your time now.
2. Commit to your goal of learning to fly.
3. Lay the groundwork for success.
4. Make a firm plan.
5. Focus on schedule, progress, and results.
6. Use your time effectively and efficiently.
7. Enjoy your success.

Analyze How You Spend Your Time

If you don't know how you are spending your time, you'll never have any to spend. Analyzing how you use your time allows you to evaluate several things, starting with the current priorities in your life. You may think you know what's important to you, but do you spend your time accordingly? It's easy to allow mundane or routine tasks to take over more and more your life. When you step back and see just how much time you put into such activities, you can see where your priorities are - and how they may have drifted from your intentions.

Once you know how you are spending your time, you may discover that there are items you could eliminate or consolidate. For example, you might be able to free up an hour or two for study if you went to the grocery store once a week instead of two or three times. Perhaps you could devote one or two lunch breaks each week to your books.

Finally, reviewing the way you now spend your time can show you how much control you exert over your affairs on a day-to-day basis. Do you control events or are they controlling you? You need to know the facts if you want to make changes. When you begin to analyze the way you spend your time, don't just jot down what you think you do in an average day. Spend a week or so actually taking notes on exactly what you do and how long it takes you to do it. You will be surprised by the number of time-wasters that have crept into your schedule. This first step is vital because fitting flight training into a busy schedule requires disciplined time allocation.

Commit To Your Goal

Once you know how you spend your time, you are in a position to make some informed decisions. You must next decide whether you're willing to actually make the changes and follow through or whether transforming your schedule is just too tough. If you decide to go for it, firmly commit yourself. That means making your flying (and studying) a top priority. Line it up with your other priorities deciding, when push comes to shove, what's going to stay and what's going to go. If you're scheduled to fly tomorrow, but you're tired after a tough day at work, will you choose to watch your favorite TV show or to study for your upcoming flight? If you keep your commitment to yourself, you'll tape the show and crack the books. TV will still be there when there is nothing more important to do.

Lay The Groundwork For Success

Having made a commitment, follow up by giving yourself the best possible chance to succeed. Part of that is picking a good team. Your instructor is a key member of that team. An instructor who knows where you want to go and how you want to get there is one of the best assets you can have. Find one who understands your lifestyle, constraints, and goals and is willing to support them.

You are the customer here. Your desires should be accommodated by the team you select, so choose your instructor, flight school and FBO wisely. Don't settle for less than the best you can afford. That said, higher cost does not necessarily mean higher quality

Pick an instructor who will allocate the time required to provide professional instruction to you. If you know that you can fly or take ground school twice a week at certain hours, find an instructor who is willing to give you that time slot on a consistent basis. You need to know that if you hold up your end of the bargain by coming to lessons on time and prepared, your instructor will do the same. Be sure that your instructor understands the value of both air and ground time and is committed to doing whatever it takes to provide a good program for you - even if that means something a little out of the ordinary.

The CFI you hire should follow a syllabus. You should have your own copy and know what's in it. Your instructor will assign specific lessons and topics for study before you arrive for a flight lesson. It is critical to understand what's coming up so you can arrive prepared.

You also need to analyze how you study. It may have been many years since the last time you cracked a textbook, and you may fear that you've forgotten how to study. To make sure your time is being spent effectively, scan the material first. Relate your learning to what you already know. Make notes. Don't get up from a study session not knowing what you have read and studied. If anything is still unclear, go back over the material. If you still don't understand, discuss it with your instructor at, or before, your next lesson. When you are finished studying, try to boil down what you've read to its essential elements. If you don't think you can teach what you've learned to someone else, you haven't mastered the material. If you don't take the time to understand what you study before you fly, you will waste expensive flying time learning things in the airplane that you should have learned on the ground.

Your instructor is not the only member of your team. You're going to need support personnel and that's where your family comes in. If your family - particularly your spouse - is opposed to you flying, you're going to find it very difficult to make the time you need, and your efforts are sure to be met with resentment. Enlist the support of your family early on. Family members sometimes don't realize how important learning to fly is to a would-be pilot. They may have misconceptions about "little airplanes" and imagine unrealistic dangers. Let them know how much this endeavor means to you, what you need to do to succeed, and what they can do to help. Reach an agreement about how much time you will be able to devote to flying, and don't forget to thank your family members for their support as you go. If your family shows any interest, talk to your instructor about taking them on an intro flight or lesson. Sometimes getting up in the airplane is all it takes to demystify piloting and get your family to work with you in support of your goals.

Make A Firm Plan

Here's where the rubber starts to meet the road! You wouldn't even think about starting a business or embarking on a big project without first putting together a plan. Well, learning to fly can be a big project, too. So, just as you would for any other project, build a plan that carefully allocates your time, money, effort, and smarts to get it all done. That requires using your head and directing precious resources - of which time is probably the biggie - for best effect.

To start, you need to have a realistic understanding of what it takes to learn to fly. If you haven't already done so, phone several local flight schools and ask them what is really involved in learning to fly. Ask how many flight hours and ground hours you will realistically need and ask for their hourly rates for instructors and airplanes. Depending on where you live, you may find that the answers vary a great deal. Use what you find out to create a plan.

If any flight school tells you it will take you 35 or 40 hours to get your pilot's certificate, don't believe it. The regulations say it can be done in that amount of time, but the truth is that is generally takes considerably longer - somewhere between 55 and 75 hours. Remember, that's just time spent in the airplane with the propeller turning. You will also need to spend time on the ground with your instructor before and after each lesson, and you may want to take an organized ground school class as well.

In addition, airplane rental and instruction rates can vary quite a lot. Remember that the cheapest rental rate does not necessarily equal the lowest cost for earning your certificate. Airplanes that are poorly maintained or spend a lot of time in the shop, and instructors who are unreliable and don't keep their appointments, can end up costing you a lot more than a higher rental or instruction rate.

Once you have an idea about how much time and money you'll need to budget, it may be a good idea to get some help composing your plan and carving out your time. Any time management book that makes sense to you can be a big asset. Adapt its principles to your individual circumstances, assets, and your goal of learning to fly. Be ruthless about how you spend your time. If you repeatedly encounter activities that consume excessive time and interfere with the study you have to do before you fly, get rid of them. Just stop doing whatever it is. Revisit your priorities and use them to allocate your discretionary time.

Seek your instructor's guidance. Together develop a workable flying schedule and overall plan on which you, your CFI, your flying school and your other priorities can build. Try to schedule regular days of the week and times of the day as far ahead of time as you can, being sure to allow for known conflicts.

Since nothing ever goes strictly according to plan, build in some flexibility. You will undoubtedly lose flights to bad weather, broken airplanes, and the like. Compensate with alternate plans for spending that time doing ground school work, taking tests, or enhancement activities like visiting a control tower and flight service station.

If you cannot fly during the week, dedicate weekend time to the task. You may want to study two lessons at a time and fly more than once during a single day. This can be more effective than simply doubling the length of your lesson because you will need a short rest and a chance to assimilate what you've learned.

Focus On Schedule, Progress, And Results

Once you have made a schedule, stick to it. The purpose of commitment, careful scheduling, and adequate prep-aration before you fly is to allow you to focus on flying when the time comes. Once you have the plan, partners (CFI, school, family), and preparation required for success, make sure they are taking you where you need to go. Get progress reports from your instructor. Plot them against the syllabus. Make sure you're achieving results.

As you move through the training process, you may find yourself hitting plateaus where your progress seems to slow down or stop altogether. You may even feel like you're going backwards. This is a normal part of the learning experience, but it can lead you to lose your focus and become mired in frustration. When that happens it's easy to let your commitment slide. Don't allow temporary setbacks to get you off track. When you find that you're running into difficulties, schedule a nonflying meeting with your CFI. Get extra help on the things that are giving you problems and review how far you've come and how much you've learned. This is the time to give yourself a pat on the back for all you've achieved so far and to push ahead. The bottom line is that it's up to you to take charge of your own program, working hand-in-hand with your instructor. Keep track of where you're going and maintain focus on your plan for getting there.

Use Your Time Wisely

Study the FBO's schedule and arrange your flights when airplanes are most available, if you can. Schedule early in the morning or after work. If you're close enough to the airport and your job allows you flexibility, fly during the day, making up the work time by coming in early or staying late. Weekends are generally the busiest time, but if they are the only time you can fly, be sure that you schedule your appointments with your instructor and airplane well in advance. If possible, try to schedule the same airplane for every lesson. Every airplane - even of the same make and model - is a little different. You'll save time familiarizing yourself with different aircraft if you stick to one that you know well. You'll have plenty of time to try out other birds once you have your certificate.

If poor weather scrubs a planned mission, work with your CFI ahead of time to have an alternate lesson planned. Be sure that you've studied for your backup lesson as well as your primary lesson. That way you'll be prepared for whatever comes up. For ex- ample, if the weather is too bad to fly at all, ask your instructor to give you some ground time reviewing what you have learned and covering something new. On the other hand, if winds at the surface are too strong for landing practice, work on ground reference maneuvers so that you can learn to compensate for the wind.

Check weather well before you get to the airport. Start checking as far ahead as you can. I normally start checking a week out on my computer and track trends nearly every day. Get an official weather briefing before you fly. That way you know what to expect when you arrive and you can be prepared for whatever awaits you - even if it's a ground or simulator lesson.

If you know you are going to be pressed for time after an early morning flight, get to the airport early and do your preflight ahead of time once you're "cleared" by your instructor to do that. Be sure to communicate to your instructor that you are on a tight schedule-that way he knows it's a bad day to let any preceding lessons run over or to keep you out in the practice area a few extra minutes. Check to see if your instructor can brief you about the planned flight the night before the lesson and answer your questions then. (Expect to pay for the time your instructor spends on the phone with you just as you would pay for a face-to-face preflight briefing.) That way you're ready to go the moment your lesson is scheduled to start.

The bottom line of all this is to have a bottom line in the first place. You need to know what your goal is - earning your pilot certificate - and do what it takes to get there.

Go after it in the same deliberate, purposeful way you'd go after a new client or market a new product. Make a commitment, line up the tools you need to do the job, make a plan for success, and work it smartly. Then you'll be ready for the final step - enjoying your success.