From Here to There

Time Management

Part 2 in a 2-part series

From Here to There

My dad had a by-and-by type of personality – nothing much fazed him and if he didn’t get something done today, that’s what tomorrow is for.  I take after my mother- for me, it’s all or nothing.

During a discussion with a friend, I was asked why I couldn’t just do something for its own sake, and not aim for a date of accomplishment. The words that fell out of my mouth surprised me.  I’m a goal-oriented person and if I don’t have a goal to aim for, I don’t aim for anything.

Problem #1 We Set Goals that are Intimidating

Oftentimes we envision the result without realizing that a lot of little steps lie between you and it. And sometimes maybe we sabotage ourselves with seemingly impossible goals.  At first glance “I want to write a book”.  Becomes the mountain in front of us. That goal is enormous in our minds and we end up not following through.

What we need to do is break that into smaller attainable goals. Don’t try to go from point A to point Z in a single bound. There are many smaller steps between where you are now and where you want to be.  And to get there we must ask ourselves what we need to do, arrange, or move to accomplish those goals.

-          What can I do each day that will get me closer to what I want to get done?

-          What can I do in 15 minutes a day?   30 minutes?

        Plot?     Characters?    World Building?    Outline?

-          Can I write a page a day?

-          Do I have a place to do this without interruption?

The point I am trying to make is that nothing gets done without intent.  We are not helpless characters in our lives – or are we? 

My personal go-to is the 15 minutes to an hour in bed before I turn out the lights for the night.  I have a pile of notebooks two feet high sitting on a small footstool beside my bed.  I call it my Jenga-pile.  This works for me because many of my current works-in-progress are always on my mind throughout the day, marinating in the background.

And if you are wanting to write a story or novel, ask yourself these questions:

        1)   What is your idea?  You always start with an idea.

       2)    What happens?  There is always action – that’s what makes a story.

       3)     How much happens?  It’s not one chapter, is it?

       4)     Why?  That’s probably going to be your “hook”.

5   5)      And then what?  For every action, yada, yada, yada.  And most importantly,

       6)      How does this end?

NOTE: If you don’t know how this ends before you begin, you will end up writing both yourself and your poor character(s) into a circle and your story will flounder.

Someone once told me “Know how your story ends before you begin writing – and then write toward that end. The great thing about writing it toward the ending is that then you will be able to lay a lot of groundwork throughout your story for your “ta-da” moment, your ending

Problem #2 Time

While we all have the same amount of time in our daily lives, some of us have more obligations and outside interference that consumes our downtime.

May I suggest that “finding” time could possibly be a matter of rearranging the time we have into manageable blocks?  If something is ON and IN my mind, I can surely sit and write for at least 15 minutes – before the evening news, or in place of the news.  Before bedtime or after lights out.  Like last night – this article was on my mind and I have this little book light clip at my bedside.  Up comes my pillow to block a lot of the light and I pull my notebook over onto the bed to keep writing.  My notebook is never too far away these days.  Even “finding” time, once the desire hits, is a multi-step process.  Small steps. 

My life has always been a bit like a Chinese puzzle: to move one thing, something else needs moved first, and on down the line.  It’s like the room over my garage. It’s been over-filled with furniture, books, canvases and art supplies – then there’s the computer desk and accoutrements - and oh, yeah – that big round work table I have stuff on and under.

I needed to be able to use that darn room – although I’ve been able and have written anywhere.  All I really need is a flat surface and a pen. Decisions were made, and I brutally went through it removing some things and completely discarding others. It was hard to let go of some perfectly good things that I no longer had any use for.  And again, it seemed that I had to move one thing before I could move another.  Now I can use that room the way it was meant – a place where I can paint and write.  But that is sometimes the way it is with our time: to do something, we really want/need, we need to move things, events, circumstances around to where it works for us.