No Time: Your Best Fake Excuse To Avoid Writing
- Posted by Essays Blog in Essays Blog |
- September 26th, 2008 |
- Comments
After a full day of activity, family and life, you fall into bed exhausted. Mentally sound off your to-do list, you cycle finished shopping lists, phone calls, appointments, feeling good about what you have gotten done, until you get to the abstraction you really deprivation to do. You lay thither, bathed in regret &ndash why didn’t you get your writing done today? You vow to do it tomorrow. You will make time for your novel or that article you know would sell. You consider angles, compose a few lines in your head, and fired up with enthusiasm for your writing, you fall asleep. The next day continues on much like the one before and you live the life of an unrealised writer, all because you do not do the simple activity of making time to compose.
The chore of finding and dedicating time for your writing can be daunting. Many people who deprivation to compose identify this as the number one challenge &ndash finding time. How can you give yourself more time when thither are a limited number of hours in the day plus housework, family, a job, and other personal or professional obligations to fulfill? You can’t create more hours in your day but you can restructure the ones you have to make more time for your writing. As a writer and a coach for writers, I have identified any of the reasons behind the challenge and offer any distance to get around the lack of time excuse.
Often the “lack of time” is really a mask for writing fears. The activity of writing, piece solid, can be difficult to make time for. We put it off to do the easier things, the things we know how to do. Entertain the things you do when you are procrastinating getting to the writing. Do you clean, cook, or exercise? Do you drop your important writing time reading or observance TV? The act of writing challenges us to dive into ourselves and come out with something concrete. This is not easy. Notice when you are resisting and when you really do not have time to compose.
Thither are a limited number of hours in the day, but often we give away our passion and power by forgetting that we can always choose what to do with our time. I can hear you expression, “Well, I have my job, and so I have my family, and kids, and all these other obligations.” Your roles become more powerful than you are because you believe you have no choice in the matter. Certainly dinner needs to be served. Certainly you have other commitments that you need to honor. But who decided that your writing wasn’t as important as everything else? What would life be like if your passions had a place in the agenda as advantageously? What difference would it make to the people in your life if you staked a claim for your writing? Hmmm…
With the help of a perspective shift, you may realize that your writing is important, also. Perhaps in your mind it has been important, but you haven’t appropriated that extra block to actually make area for it. Without area, your writing becomes a burden on your back, something you deprivation to do but can’t. You so become a dupe of your life. No fun.
Look at the following distance to restructure your time both internally and externally. So sample a few of them and accompany what works for you.
Get in the habit of writing in abbreviated bursts of time. Give yourself ten, fifteen, or bill minutes to compose and so learn how to make the most of those bursts of writing. This means sidestepping the roving or procrastination that distract you from writing.
Arouse early. Set your alarm bill minutes early and give yourself that time to compose. If the cerebration of getting up earlier makes you cringe, attempt giving yourself time at the end of the day.
Do you follow TV? Give it up and give yourself more time to compose. Many people consume TV as a artifact to regulate out and relax at the end of the day, but isn’t thither a better artifact to relax and be entertained? Yes! Consume your writing to relax. Which leads me to…
Reframe the artifact you entertain writing. Of course the art of writing is activity, but if you remember it as drudgery and something that requires a lot of you, you are missing out on the rejuvenating aspects of the practice.
Whenever you do get a chance to compose, accept a minute when you are finished and expense III words that describe how you feel after writing. Consume these words as a lure to get you to the page when you feel beat or sterile.
Accept part of your lunchtime to compose. Or, consume your allotted coffee or aerosol breaks to elapse from activity and scribble a few lines.
The real issue is often time management. We may have enough time but do not consume it in a artifact that honors our priorities. What are your priorities? If you are not showing up for your writing, maybe it isn’t a priority. What else is going on in your life that is more compelling than writing? Accept a moment now to jot down where you drop your time. What do you notice about your priorities?
Once you have a clear picture of where your time goes, how do you feel about it? Does the artifact you drop your time reflect what is important to you? Activity and other obligations appear more fixed and indeed they may be for now, but where else can you make decisions to get writing into your life?
Perhaps your issue or project isn’t alluring enough. I have been employed on the same project for years now, and thither were times when I just wasn’t interested. I gave myself a break, knowing that I would come back thereto. Now I have an angle on it that is compelling and fun and I am more eager to make time for it. How can you approach your project in a artifact that would entice you to make time for it? How do you find a writing project that earns your time and attention?
Play with an entirely new perspective. Let go of the idea of you as a writer. Perhaps now that you are clear about how you drop your time you are happy with it. Maybe you have realized that you really don’t deprivation to make the effort to compose at this point after all. How free would you feel if you let yourself off the hook for having the writing advocate and not having the time to indulge it?
Attempt a means I consume with my clients. Imagine giving up writing, and the idea of writing. I call it ‘taking away the bone.’ Remember a dog with a bone. Imagine trying to grab the bone from the dog’s mouth. The dog will hang onto that bone for dear life. If the cerebration of losing your writing advocate makes you deprivation to grab onto it even tighter, it could be a sign that you need to do what it takes to make writing a priority in your life. Commit to yourself as a writer, get clear about your writing projects, and let it happen.