Balancing act
Life is a balancing act. We all have to balance one thing against another, and the balance we find is fluid, subject to change at a moment’s notice. Sometimes the balance is hard to find, we’re pulled in so many directions, there are so many demands on our time. There are children, parents, other family, friends, work, the house, pets… and so many more. When do we get time to just relax, time for us?
Over the last couple of years, my balance has slipped further and further. I’m a self-employed author, no-one is cracking a whip and making me work, so I find excuses to not write. The words aren’t flowing. I’m not inspired. I’ll do more tomorrow, next week, when the sun comes out, on rainy days. I’ll go for a long walk first, make a cuppa, do a level on Candy Crush, pop out to see a friend, look at the garden which is being neglected and then spend time thinking about what I’d like to do out there. Then my kids need something, some time, taking somewhere, picking up from somewhere. Other family, friends demand a bit of my time, and can I please help out with this, that, or the other, and I make time for them too. Housework needs to get done, laundry needs doing, bits of DIY and workmen in refurbishing the kitchen and bathroom. I can’t write with a houseful of people banging and crashing about, can I? That’s reasonable, isn’t it?
And breathe.
This is the curse of the self-employed, of the creative, the artist, the writer. I’ll work from home and life will be perfect. I can balance family and work and all will be rosy. Not exactly, it doesn’t work like that. I’ve let myself slip. I’m not writing every day, but equally I’m not diverting that time to my kids, friends, or family. I’m not spending all day doing housework, and there’s no big garden project underway. The balance is so far off that everything is suffering.
Our time is our own, but it’s also our livelihood and we need to remember that. For me, if I am to work as a writer, and make a living at it, then I need to treat it like I have a boss setting targets, and I need to write every, single, day – not just when I feel like it. And I need to stop giving myself days off, letting life get in the way.
So do you.
Sure, there are important things that need doing too. Kids, family, friends, shopping, hoovering, cooking and plenty more. But just think. How would you fit those in if you were going to work in an office every day? You’d make it work, wouldn’t you?
Working from home, you have total control over how you spend your time. You can plan your writing time for when you’re home alone, or after the kids are in bed. But make that writing space in every day.
Mine is straight after the kids leave for school, before I do anything else. I have a target for that time – 500 words. If I get that done in 20 minutes, then I have the rest of the day for shopping, gardening, going for a walk, or housework. Some days it takes forever to get those 500 new words added to whatever I’m writing. Some days I have to move that chunk of writing time. But I write, 500 words, every day. That’s my job.
Hot question of the day is….
If you need to take a pelt somewhere and you can’t freeze it, no time to tan it, and it’s going to take weeks to get there – how do you stop it going stinky before you get home?
