I love to write. I know it’s cliché, but writing always has been my creative outlet. It relaxes me, fulfills me and generally makes me happy.
It’s likely not coincidental that as I have less time for writing I feel more stressed and less accomplished at the end of the day.
I’m not the only one who ends each day with a sense of constant busyness but having gotten nothing done. Writing may not be what you’re leaving undone, but there probably is something you wish you had more time to do.
Perhaps we can untrain our current neglect for what we love. Unclutterer.com offers Four steps for making more time for what matters most to you. I summarize them here:
- Determine where your time is going. I spend a ton of time reading my RSS feed and e-mails to find things to blog about. This results in me having tons of ideas but no time in which to actually write. You can determine where your time is going by logging what you’re doing for a few days or a week. I’m still looking for a great app to do this for me. Any suggestions?
- Eliminate what’s unimportant. If something is sucking away your time, ask yourself if it really matters. I’m spending way too much time looking for a great app to log my time and not enough time completing Step 1.
- Write a weekly schedule and stick to it. What do you need to do when? I do this in my personal planner. I even schedule family time and commute time. It helps me stay on schedule. The negative thing is that it also makes me realize how little time I have outside of my absolute responsibilities. Unclutterer.com suggests scheduling time to accomplish the tasks that actually are important to you while eliminating those that are not.
- Stick to it. Once you schedule time for what’s important, maintain that schedule. Obviously, this last step is most important. If you don’t adhere to the new schedule, you’ve just taken even more time away from what’s important.
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