August 9, 2025 | Ademola Adeyemi

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”

— William Penn

I have a confession that’s going to piss you off.

You already spend 2+ hours every single day learning a language. You’re just learning the wrong one.

Think about it. You consume 3+ hours of entertainment daily. You scroll social media without thinking about time. You binge entire TV seasons on weekends. You spend hours on hobbies you actually enjoy.

You find time for whatever truly matters to you.

The brutal truth? You probably have 10,000+ hours invested in activities you can’t even remember. That Netflix show you watched last month? Gone. Those Instagram reels from yesterday? Forgotten. The YouTube rabbit hole from last week? Evaporated.

But here’s what really gets me: You call this “not having time” for language learning.

That’s not time scarcity. That’s ruthless, dedicated consistency pointed at English content instead of your target language.

You’ve already proven you can be obsessively consistent with massive input. Your brain is wired for content consumption. You just need to redirect that wiring toward your target language.

The average professional tells me they don’t have time to learn Spanish while spending 40+ hours per week consuming English entertainment. They’ll say they’re “too busy” while binge-watching an entire season of a show they’ll forget in six months.

Stop lying to yourself.

You don’t lack time. You lack intentional content choices.

Here’s the uncomfortable reality: If you gave that same consumption energy to K dramas instead of Netflix… Korean YouTube instead of English channels… Korean podcasts instead of English ones… you could be conversational within months. 

Not decades. MONTHS. Less than 2 years. And don’t get me started if we are talking languages similar to your native language. Sheeee*t..

And deep down, you already know that.

But you’re still choosing the path that keeps you monolingual. Why? Because English feels easier. Familiar. Less demanding.

Today, I’m going to show you how to hijack those 2+ hours you’re already spending and turn them into fluency fuel without quitting your job, changing your schedule, or sacrificing your career advancement.

Why “Finding Time” Keeps You Monolingual

Let me paint you a picture of the Disney fairytale that’s been sabotaging busy professionals for years.

“I’ll start learning Portuguese once work slows down. Once this project finishes. Once I get that promotion. Once the kids are older. Once I have more time.”

Bullshit.

Work will never slow down. There will always be another project. Kids don’t get less demanding—they get different kinds of demanding. You will never “find” time because time isn’t lost. It’s allocated.

The “finding time” approach treats language learning as an addition to your life instead of a replacement activity. It’s the reason you downloaded Duolingo, used it for three days, then quit when “work got busy.”

Here’s what actually happened: You tried to add language learning on top of your existing 40-hour work week, your existing entertainment habits, and your existing social obligations. Of course you failed. Your day was already full.

But hey I know the feeling.

I watched this happen to a lawyer friend of mine. Jen bought a $300 online Spanish course, attended exactly four lessons, then abandoned it completely when a big case came up. She told me she “didn’t have time” for Spanish—while averaging 90 minutes daily on TikTok.

Jen’s problem wasn’t time scarcity. It was time allocation blindness.

She had convinced herself that entertainment time and language learning time were completely different categories. Entertainment was “relaxation.” Language learning was “work.” So when work got stressful, the first thing to go was the “additional work” of language learning.

But what if I told you that watching Spanish Netflix isn’t additional work—it’s the same relaxation you’re already doing, just in a different language?

That’s the aha moment that changes everything.

Your brain is already wired for massive content consumption. You’ve already proven you can maintain ruthless consistency with media input. The problem isn’t your capacity—it’s your content selection.

This is what I call “Content Hijacking”—the practice of replacing your existing entertainment with target language equivalents instead of trying to find additional time for traditional study methods.

Content Hijacking recognizes a truth that most language learning methods ignore: You’re going to consume media anyway. You’re going to scroll social media anyway. You’re going to listen to music anyway.

Why not do it in Spanish?

When Jen finally made this shift—switching one Netflix show to Spanish, changing her podcast app to Spanish content, following Spanish Instagram accounts instead of English ones—something magical happened. She wasn’t “finding time” for Spanish anymore. She was just living her normal life in Spanish.

Six months later, she was having business calls in Spanish with clients in Mexico. Not because she found extra hours in her day, but because she redirected the hours she already had.

That’s the difference between time finding and content hijacking. Time finding treats your target language like an intruder in your life. Content hijacking treats it like the natural evolution of activities you’re already doing.

The 2-Hour Content Hijacking System

Most professionals tell me they “tried immersion” but it didn’t work. When I dig deeper, here’s what they actually did: They found 30 minutes between work and dinner to “study,” got overwhelmed by content they couldn’t understand, then gave up after two weeks.

That’s not immersion. That’s language tourism.

Real immersion isn’t about finding extra time. It’s about infiltrating your existing time with strategic content choices that compound into fluency.

The 2-Hour Content Hijacking System transforms your existing entertainment habits into a fluency-building machine without disrupting your work schedule or personal life.

Step 1: Conduct Your Digital Consumption Audit

You can’t hijack what you don’t acknowledge.

Before you can redirect your content consumption, you need to see how you’re actually spending those hours daily. Most people drastically underestimate their screen time because consumption feels passive, not active.

Here’s your reality check: Install a screen time tracking app for one week. Don’t change your habits—just observe them. Track Netflix, YouTube, social media, podcasts, music streaming, news browsing, everything.

I guarantee you’ll be shocked by the numbers.

When I did this audit with a language group on the Hill, the average daily consumption was 3.2 hours. That’s 22+ hours per week of pure input time that could be redirected toward target language acquisition.

That marketing executive who claimed she “didn’t have time” for German? She was spending 45 minutes daily watching makeup tutorials on YouTube and 30 minutes scrolling Instagram before bed. That’s 75 minutes of daily German input opportunity hiding in plain sight.

The audit isn’t about judgment—it’s about awareness. You can’t make strategic changes to patterns you refuse to acknowledge exist.

Step 2: Execute The Netflix Switch

Replace one show, transform your entire relationship with the language.

This is where most people get overwhelmed. They think they need to switch everything at once, diving into content that’s way above their level and burning out within days.

Don’t be that person.

Start with one show. Just one.

Pick a genre you already love in English, then find the equivalent in your target language. Love crime dramas? Find Korean crime shows. Obsessed with cooking shows? Spanish cooking content exists. Into tech reviews? There are YouTubers making tech content in every major language.

The key is maintaining the emotional engagement you already have with the content type while shifting the language input.

Emotional engagement is everything. When you’re invested in the content itself, the language becomes secondary. You stop thinking “I’m practicing Korean” and start thinking “I want to know what happens next.”

Step 3: Hijack Your Commute With Strategic Audio

Transform dead time into fluency fuel.

If you commute 30+ minutes daily, that’s 2.5+ hours per week of pure audio input opportunity. Most professionals waste this time on English podcasts about productivity or business topics they could easily access in their target language.

But here’s where most people screw this up: They jump straight into advanced content and get discouraged when they can’t follow along.

Smart commute hijacking starts with content slightly below your level, not above it. You want material you can follow 70-80% without stress, not 30% with maximum effort.

For beginners: Children’s audiobooks, simple news podcasts, basic conversation content.

For intermediate learners: True crime podcasts, interview shows, educational content about topics you already know well in English.

For advanced learners: Comedy podcasts, complex news analysis, niche hobby content.

The goal isn’t to understand every word. The goal is to maintain engagement while your brain processes massive amounts of natural speech patterns.

Step 4: Deploy The 10-Word Minimum Viable Day

Small daily vocabulary building that compounds into conversational ability.

Here’s where most busy professionals sabotage themselves: They think vocabulary building requires hour-long flashcard sessions or intensive study periods.

Wrong.

The most effective vocabulary acquisition happens through consistent, small daily doses integrated into your existing content consumption, not separated from it.

The 10-Word Rule is simple: As you consume your hijacked content, note down 10 new words or phrases that stood out to you. Not every word you didn’t know—that’s overwhelming. Just 10 that felt important or useful.

Add these to a simple spaced repetition system (I recommend Migaku Memory, which I personally use, or Anki, which is free, but any SRS works). 

Trenton’s breakdown is pretty spot on so check this out if you’re curious.

You Should Be Using Anki

Make sure you review your cards each day. Completely. This is the glue that keeps the 10 new words added sticky until you hear them again in context.

I like to get them done as part of my morning routine. The cheat code if you’re getting kinda scared where to fit it in your routine for me is very simple. 

Review while you take your daily dump.

Yes. You heard me correctly. That’s a solid uninterrupted natural break in your schedule.

If you can’t sacrifice that time, find 30 minutes in your day during the breaks or time block little by little until you’re all done.

This isn’t additional study time—it’s strategic processing of content you were already consuming.

Here’s why this works: Those 10 words aren’t random vocabulary from a textbook. They’re words that appeared in content you were genuinely interested in, in contexts that mattered to you. Your brain already has emotional hooks for these words, making them easier to remember so you don’t have to stress looking up everything all the time. 

Find your 10 ripe fruits. Pluck ‘em. And focus on paying attention to how they talk when you can’t follow all the details (I still do this to this day).

Step 5: Create Accountability Anchors That Make Regression Impossible

Design your environment so that reverting to English becomes harder than continuing in your target language.

The biggest threat to content hijacking isn’t lack of motivation—it’s the gravitational pull of familiar English content. When you’re tired, stressed, or overwhelmed, your brain will default to the path of least resistance.

You need to make that path lead toward your target language, not away from it.

Accountability anchors are environmental changes that make continuing your content hijacking easier than abandoning it.

Change your phone’s language settings to your target language. Sudden inconvenience every time you want to revert to English entertainment.

Follow target language accounts on all social media platforms and unfollow English equivalents in the same content areas. Make your algorithm work for you instead of against you.

Find one conversation partner or language exchange buddy. Schedule weekly 30-minute conversations. This creates external accountability for maintaining your input momentum.

Set up automatic content delivery: Subscribe to target language YouTube channels, podcasts, newsletters. Make consuming target language content the default option, not the conscious choice.

YouTube is by far my favorite place to immerse. Watch this breakdown by Matt vs Japan on how to get your TL YouTube setup.

Language Learning with YouTube: A Simple but Powerful Tip

These changes take 30 minutes to implement but create weeks of momentum because they remove the daily decision fatigue around content selection. Your environment does the work of keeping you consistent.

The world won’t slow down for you. Train your content consumption habits to speed up your fluency.

You’ve already proven you can maintain ruthless consistency with content consumption. You’ve already demonstrated the ability to dedicate 2+ hours daily to input activities.

Stop pretending you don’t have time for language learning. You have the time. You have the consistency. You just need to redirect both toward your actual goals instead of content you’ll forget next month.

Your target language doesn’t need to compete with your career, your family time, or your personal life. It needs to infiltrate your entertainment time.

Make that shift, and six months from now you just might be conversational in your target language without having changed your schedule, sacrificed your professional advancement, or given up the content consumption habits that already make you happy.

The only difference will be the language those habits operate in.

Your future bilingual self is waiting. Stop finding time and start hijacking it.