A mostly tongue in cheek look at personal time management.

The other day I lost an hour.

Doesn’t seem like a big deal. But that hour turned into two hours which turned into going down the rabbit holes of day to day life and suddenly, all the writing I wanted to do in my current little 45 minute window I like to use…didn’t happen.

And that’s what brings me to the Time Management Essay I have been wanting to write for quite a long time…

I always wanted to write about this time issue, but have been held back by two things.

1. These days, the time I have for writing is almost exclusively dedicated to my wonderfully sprawling National Novel Writing month novel, entitled “The Times of Clouds and Sun.”

And

2. No one will find this interesting.
But this is something that aspiring writers talk about, this “how to make time while you have to work a job” thing.

I preface my words with 2 disclosures: I have no kids.

And…

I don’t have the sort of job where I need to take my work home.

For the past few years, I have gotten out of work at 1:30, early enough so that I had a nice solid chunk of time to take care of various personal needs (gotta squeeze that nap in!) and then at around 4 o’clock I was in an optimal position to write. And it worked. I wrote maybe 3 or 4 days a week, I did a zine, I wrote my books, and it was great.
But recently I had to change my schedule, and lose the sweet, sweet early off time to a dreadful 3:30…

Suddenly I became aware of all the time I was losing, about how late I was getting home, how driving home at that hour actually lost me 10 minutes every day and well…forget about writing.

So I started getting up at 5 a.m. to write. I have to be honest: I am not by nature a morning person. Technically, I am a converted morning person, but given the choice, I love sleep more than any other human activity. Getting up to be creative is horrible…

But I slugged through it for 2 months, taking advantage of a new feature of my schedule, which was having Mondays off.

Next I had the 2:30 off time. Now we were getting somewhere! I did the math: if I got home by 315, I’d have 30 minutes to shower, take care of the cat (he is diabetic and needs a shot twice a day), and have my cereal. Then a nap (I have to nap…I just have to!) and I am up and ready by 430. For various reasons I have to wrap by about 515-530.

Next month I am off at 3. This presents some challenges. But I think I can make it work….
I suppose if I were going to be really cutthroat, I could take shorter showers and cut out the naps. But let’s not be hasty.
Point being, time is valuable, but time to write is priceless. I know I have a luxury others don’t have because I have a supportive partner and a job that lets me out earlier than most people.

I lost that hour the other day but now today is Monday and I wrote for 2 hours uninterrupted.

I guess it all evens out.