Personal Resources

Time Management

 Part I in a 2-part series

Personal Resources

There is a billboard on Whipple Avenue that I pass almost every day that is advertising a car dealership.  While I’m not interested in buying one, it caught my attention because this dealership claimed that buying a car from them was not going to cost anyone their Saturday. Not money, but time is the resource they are claiming to save their customers.

Money is something that is always coming and going, but time, once spent, is something we cannot get back. How do we treat our time? Is it something we value or do we “kill time” surfing the internet?  I did some thinking about how much time is wasted during each day and week and came up with my list.  I am guilty of duplicating my errands – going to the grocery store and/or Marc’s several times a week. I could save at least two hours – that I could have spent writing – if I planned ahead and did ALL my shopping on one day a week.  I also spend too much time on the phone and internet games.  Then there is television at night.  If I spent even one hour writing instead of watching tv during the week, that would be another 5 hours I’d have.

I know carving out extra time in our days can be difficult. There are many things, organizations, people, and obligations that claim our time, and many times we are helpless in the face of such demands that we may feel our time is not our own. I’ve been there and I know. I know that when you are physically exhausted, your brain doesn’t want to work either.

I’ve been a member of the Writers’ Guild since 2007 and I’ve held office since 2008. That’s when my boys were in junior high and high school. It wasn’t easy, but I made my opportunities to write – because I needed to write. Everywhere I went I would take what I was working on.  I wrote in the car – in the high school parking lot, at the bowling alley, getting the car’s oil changed/serviced.  I wrote in a lot of doctors’ waiting rooms too. I didn’t let an idle moment go to waste.

Decisions, decisions

Sometimes it comes down to the choices we make and how engaged we are in our writing. As in art, there are two separate but equal sides to the writing process: the creative side (I’ve got to “feel” it!) and the work side (just buckle down and DO it!). The problem comes when we are waiting to feel like writing – for the muse to speak to us. And most of the time our muse doesn’t come until she sees us busy writing.