Tag: time management

Lifetime Plans Within My Lifespan

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

Time speeds up as we get older. As a kid, I could never understand how short our lives truly are. But that’s a kid’s pleasure and privilege – his whole life is spread out before him. Now, as I reach middle age, I find myself thinking more and more about the future, about the things I want to do, the things I can do and the things I might not be able to do.

Life is many things. You can’t sum it up in a sentence, but here’s one that at least defines one of its many facets: Life is something we must try to manage wisely. Time is a pesky resource that defies attempts to buy it back, reinvest or hoard. It scoffs at being treated like gold or oil. You can’t get more of it, ever.

So, when I think about my life, I think about the future. I think about my plans. I work toward accomplishing my goals. And yet …

I’m also learning to hold my plans loosely. Things change for both the better and the worse. Life is dynamic, and if we can’t be flexible, we’ll break under the stress. So, I plan, but I don’t keep those plans set in stone. Sometimes, I have to adjust or make sacrifices. The future is an unknown, and thinking I know what I will do tomorrow is self-deception. I don’t know. I can plan ahead, but I can’t ever be sure that tomorrow will turn out how I think it will.

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Finding Your Time to Write

Everyone has a time when they are at their best for writing. Everyone has that time of day when they can “get in the groove.” Whether morning or evening, when the sun is rising or when it is setting, or anytime in between, we all have sweet spots when we find it easiest to settle down and write.

But we can’t always write during that sweet time. Life comes calling. Work. Chores. Errands. Family emergencies. Social obligations. Life doesn’t always allow us to write when we want to. What to do?

Here are some of my own thoughts:

  1. Make the most of the time you have – Be diligent when you are able to sit down and work on your projects. Set goals for yourself: hitting a certain word count per day, completing a chapter, and so forth. This is especially useful if you know ahead of time that your free time is constrained.
  2. Be flexible – We all have a time of the day when we are at our literary best, but we ought not feel that that’s the only time we are allowed to write. Experiment with other times and see what else works for you. You might be surprised at how adaptive you can be.
  3. Analyze your priorities – Work is one thing, playtime is another. You might have more time to write than you think, but you devote it to something else, whether a hobby, entertainment or even napping. Ask yourself how important your writing truly is to you. Are you willing to give up a little more time to devote to it?
  4. Persevere – And sometimes, no matter what, you just can’t get into the groove because you’re a night owl who can only squeeze in a paragraph or two at the crack of dawn. Soldier on. Don’t give up, and keep writing anyway. Perseverance is vital. If you truly want to make the craft a part of your life, there will be tough days along with the good. Soldier on.

***

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

When You Feel Like You Don’t Have Enough Time…

“Old Clock” by Davmi Pics is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Do you ever feel the crunch of time? Like your to-do list is too long to fit into the hours in the day? You feel those minutes sliding by and try to cram in as much as you can. But it just isn’t enough, and you concede defeat to the march of time.

So much to do, and so little time. If only we could do it all in one go. If only we could freeze the clock in place and do everything we ever wanted to do for as long as we wanted. What a dream, huh? But what does that say about the things we do manage to accomplish when time is short?

Maybe it’s not comfortable to think about the fact that we accomplish, first and foremost, the things that matter most to us. Maybe we don’t want to think about what that says about us if we go first to the couch to watch TV, put together a jigsaw puzzle, play video games, or eat junk food. What do we prioritize? What matters most to us? Do we want to peer into that corner of ourselves?

Most of the items on our checklists are personal indulgences. A lot of the things we feel we must do are really just trifles that we enjoy more than taking out the trash or cleaning the house. Hey, entertainment is more fun than chores. That’s why it’s called entertainment. We like to have fun, and in a world where most of our time is consumed by business and work, we try to sneak it into the 16 or 18 hours we spend awake.

I find that there is a difference between what we want to do and what we actually do. The first is our conscious preference. The second is what we subconsciously place real value on. I suspect we don’t even realize it unless we’re paying close attention. We don’t recognize what we hold dear until forced to choose between this or that to wrap up in the last hour. Time crunch can lead to interesting revelations.

But how much do we really have to do in 16 hours? We tell ourselves that “this and that” must be finished, and “this and that” turns into “anything and everything.” A bit of a self-imposed burden, isn’t it? I’m not preaching procrastination, but rather that most of the troubles we face in task management is self-imposed. Cramming means we don’t want to compromise. It’s all or nothing! I want to do everything I want to do and I’m not going to cross anything off today’s to-do list! And we wear ourselves out, not from hard work, but from the exhaustion of trying to satisfy the expectations we’ve built up in our heads.

There’s more time in the day than we may think, because so many of the things we convince ourselves are absolutely vital are really just busy work and trifles. If we were to strip away everything except what is truly important in our lives, we’d end up with a much shorter list. Because those are the things we will dedicate time to. Those are the things we truly value and will not sacrifice.

Take a step back and look not at what you plan to do, but at what you actually do during the day. You may be surprised at what you see.

The gods and beings of ancient myth never went away. They just moved on with the times.

My book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is currently available on Amazon.com. Venture into the world of the Greek god Hermes, a world filled with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, magic, and trickery. It’s a tough job, being a god!

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