One of the greatest challenges for nearly everybody these days is having enough time to do everything we need to do. Daily life, in and of itself, is hard enough to manage. Add in a big project like a written work, and our lives start to feel overwhelming and pretty grim.
Of course there are a plethora of books on the subject of time management. I've read quite a few myself. Instead of pulling them out to review here, I'd rather ask you: do you feel you have enough time to write? If the answer is no, I invite you to join me in exploring some new ways to think about time.
Time is like oxygen. Both are necessary aspects of our bodily existence, the background we usually take for granted. Under certain circumstances, however, we can lack (as opposed to have) enough oxygen to thrive. We can drown, or be suffocated, or sometimes our own lungs fail us. Our bodies aren't immortal or impervious to harm. To make sure we keep breathing, we have to take some precautions. We have to protect ourselves from drowning or suffocating or, as best we can, from illnesses like emphysema and congestive heart failure.
How do we do it? Think about yourself.... Why haven't you already drowned or suffocated or died from lung disease? Maybe you'll say, I've just been lucky. That may well be true. However, I'll bet you've also paid close attention to situations that threaten your well-being. You don't swim after eating; you throw away those plastic bags that say "Beware of suffocation;" you notice when your body is not behaving normally and check that out right away. Not always, of course. Staying aware is difficult. Focusing on health is work. Sometimes, when you don't pay adequate attention, you do get lucky; other times, you pay dearly.
I'm aware that this verges on melodrama--I'm a writer, after all! But sometimes drama is useful in making connections vivid, and I don't think I'm creating a false analogy. The fact is, we will lack time if we don't take precautions to protect it. This involves making conscious choices moment by moment. Say that you know you want, or at least need, to complete some writing. You have lots of other obligations too, because you aren't independently wealthy--you don't even have a cleaning service. The temptation is to take care of first things first, the most urgent ones in your mind.
The trouble with this is that we are creatures of habit, and what seems urgent to us in the short run may effectively drown our long-term goals. Your habit is NOT, probably, to sit down first and write for a certain amount of time or certain number of words. So, examining your habits is a crucial place to start.
One way to do this is to keep a running log of what you spend your time doing for several days, tracking the order of events, the time spent on each, and how you felt during and after doing them. (I got this idea from an eminent Positive Psychologist at the University of Michigan, Chris Peterson.) If you are willing to put some effort into this, just the way you would with a food diary--and research has shown that's an excellent way to control weight--you can learn a lot about your habits and choices.
The next step, of course, is to decide what time-use habits aren't serving you and change them.
That's
for another discussion, but it can be done. So instead of drowning or
suffocating or otherwise killing your important project for lack of
time, you can dramatically increase your ability to protect and nourish
it.
Now, isn't that really good news?
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