Schedule Your Pets

I’ve been working on a book. And by working on a book, I mean I have one-third of it completed, sitting in an untouched folder buried in my computer’s file system. I started it a month or two ago. I got super excited, wrote a bunch, then put it on the back burners. I still believe strongly in the book. I plan to finish it. But I just haven’t gotten around to it. My other projects have been absorbing my time.

But I tried something yesterday. Before I began work, I made a list of everything I needed to accomplish. Then I, realistically, inserted a bit of my pet project in there: “Write 700 words in my book.”

I made it part of my to-do list. And I actually did it! So I have it on my agenda today too. I found out I have plenty of time to get everything done and put some work in on my project.

Sometimes our pet projects overwhelm us because we see how large they are. In light of our current work environment it seems impossible. Or we think to ourselves, “I’ll get around to this when I’m less busy.”

News flash: You’ll never have as much time as you do right now. Life gets busier and busier. Your time doesn’t magically free up as you get older.

You have to make time for your passions. And the easiest way to make time for them is to insert them (forcibly) into your schedule. Break down your project into bite-sized bits and make yourself guilty if you don’t get those simple tasks done.

The great side effect of doing this was that yesterday I felt like a giant. I knocked everything off my to-do list…I’d gotten some major things done that I’d been wanting to do for a while. It’s awesome, feeling like a giant.

Everyone deserves to feel like a giant.

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