The Impetus
Read an awesome post over at Romancing the Blog (which is about much more than Romance writing alone) that really kicked me in the butt.
In a good way, of course.
She works with writers groups and gives workshops on time management, and she sees the same people with the same hopeful faces attend these meetings over and over again, hoping to hear some magic “trick” so that they will find time to write.
They all want to fulfill their dream of being a writer, but the days just slip away.
Sound familiar?
It sure does to me.
Writers write. Period.
The best way to be a writer is to act like a writer. Apply butt to chair, fingers to keyboard.
I know this. I’ve heard this advice before. And yet something keeps holding me back, keeping me from actually DOING what needs to be done.
Life will always get in the way, but we have to remember that we have absolute control over how we spend our time.
Everyone gets the same 24 hours in a day.
Whether we spend those hours watching tv, playing video games, exercising, socializing with loved ones, or writing – THAT is our choice.
An Exercise
Try this. What do you WANT your priorities to be? What are your cherished dreams, your goals? Where do you want to be in 5 years, 10 years, etc?
Now, start a second list. What do you spend your time on? Go ahead and map out your typical days if it helps. Block off a section for sleep (sleep is very important. Super high priority on my personal list). Block off a section for work or school, depending on your life. Block off sections for travel to and from school or work, if applicable.
How many hours are left? Where are they?
It seems incredible just how much time is left, doesn’t it?
Of course, we all need to bathe, clean, eat, cook, etc.Those with kids have a much smaller window available.
But a window is a window. No matter how small, whether it’s just half an hour a day that I’m able to scratch out – it’s time I can spend on my goals. On my dreams.
On writing.
I went to a HS in a magnet program that focused on advanced Math and Science. As a big group of over-achievers we tended to take on huge class loads and lots of extra-curriculars because it looks good on college apps. My junior year the director of the Academy made us a little worksheet about how we spend our time in order to help us pick our classes for our Senior year. It had things like sleeping, transportation (many of us drove 30 mins+ across town every day), classes, homework, and extracurricular activities. He asked each of the teachers to give an estimate of how much time out side of class he expected each student to need. After a group of about 100 of us (about 1/4 of my class) filled it out well over half of us needed more than 24 hours in a day and usually only accounted for 5-6 hours of sleep.
He told us to really evaluate what we wanted to be spending our time on in our much anticipated Senior year… doing tons of classwork that wasn’t necessary to graduate… or hanging out with our friends. Needless to say most of us didn’t heed this advice, I took 5 AP classes that year in addition to National Honor Society, marching band, and winter guard. It was a lesson I learned in hindsight… Now I try to only take on what I have time for and I make time for the things I really want. I also plan on needing what I call “veg time”… time to sit back and hang out with The Hubby or play with the dog or watch movies.
Sheesh… I guess I should have made this a blog post :-) Sorry about the wall of text!
@Lauren
*laughs* No apologies for that on THIS blog, of all places! Ramble away!
That’s a great lesson, and one I still haven’t entirely learned. Planning veg time is absolutely imperative, I think. No one can be go go go go go all the time.
The trick is making sure we don’t plan so much veg time that we don’t actually do anything BUT veg! Sometimes that’s a tough one for me.
Many of us fall into a “what is easiest” crack on the landscape of the day, everyday. Television is the greatest example of that I can think of. How many people, rather than looking forward to something on Tv (forget accomplishing anything where TV is concerned, lest viewing is an accomplishment).
Most of “us” will invariable do something similar by checking our favorites on a daily basis and monitoring news websites or any other that have peaked our interests.
The ends end up being the same as television though, with little accomplished.
Of course accomplishments then become something thats an abstract and the question arises, what does it take for something you do to become a recognized accomplishment? Do other have to witness it and appreciated it? Or does it just have to provide you with some feeling of moving forward?
if the latter is true, perhaps some that spend so much of their free time watching Tv do feel accomplished as they have met their lofty goals for the day.
@Rhotley
Every person has different goals, and different demands on their time. Writing is NOT an easy goal for me to have. I can draw and color while watching tv, but I can’t write.
And monitoring news and blogs can sometimes teach us new things, which gives a feeling of accomplishment. And sometimes THAT feeling can be a dangerous path. It’s an obvious and easy solution to stop doing something which gives you nothing. But to stop doing something that gives infrequent or periodic knowledge is more difficult.
It’s a moderation game, I think. If I cannot write and follow 200 blogs in my feed reader…can I write and follow 100? What about 50? I need to find out the solution for myself, since I obviously don’t want to stop following blogs. But perhaps I should stop following quite as MANY blogs, especially those that I don’t often find content that engages me.