There’s no question about it, even though technology was supposed to make life easier and give us more time, the demands on us are escalating.
Making the time to do something that is important to you, like writing the screenplay or novel you’ve been thinking about for ages, is a bigger challenge than ever…but it IS possible.
Here are three ways to help you get started:
Consciously decide what you are NOT going to do anymore.
You’re already doing something every hour of the day. There’s no way to turn a day into 25 hours just because you want to now spend an hour a day writing.
That means you have to decide what it is you do now for an hour a day that you will stop doing.
Some likely candidates are watching TV, surfing the web, housework, errands, laundry, and hanging out with people out of habit rather than because you enjoy it. You may be thinking, “Wait--the laundry has to be done, so do errands! That brings us to strategy number two:
Find ways to delegate some of the things you are doing now.
- Can your spouse or kids take over some of the chores you are doing now?
- Can you hire a high school or college student to run errands for a you a few hours on the weekend?
- Can you hire somebody online? (There’s a great site at www.Fiverr.com that lists what people will do for $5 (or more). There’s a UK version, Fivesquid.com, and you can use either one. There is an amazing variety of services on offer. For instance, I’ve used it recently to get somebody to transcribe 10 minutes of an audio interview recording and to create original music for the introduction to a podcast I’m planning.
Barter or exchange services
For example, if you and your neighbor both have kids, you might swap babysitting services to give each of you a free afternoon.
The bottom line
At the end of your life, do you want to think back and say, “Well, I never got around to writing the stories I was passionate about, but my kitchen sure was spotless!”? Or, “I could have written a script that would have had an impact on the world, but then again going bowling with the gang from work every Friday night was fun even though George from HR got on my nerves and my feet always hurt from wearing those stupid bowling shoes”?
The time to start doing something about your dream is now, and you CAN make the time to make it come true.