This is the tale of two books. Two of my books. One book is about 50 chapters and 30,000 words. The other book is about 7 chapters and 7,000 words.
The big book (the 50 chapter one), is already done. I wrote it in about 3 months. The small book isn’t done. In fact, I’m only about halfway through. And I began writing this book three months ago.
Can you tell which one I took seriously? Looking only at my actions and the statistics of the book, you can tell I took the big book seriously, and I’m just dabbling with the small book. There’s one difference between the two books that have made the difference.
I scheduled the big book during the week. Each day of the 5 workdays, I wrote a chapter or two. It was scheduled into my daily activities.
For the small book, I’ve only been writing it on weekends. When my wife volunteers in the kids program for the early service, I go to Starbucks and write it. And since she doesn’t volunteer every week, I don’t write on it every week.
I’ll eventually finish the small book. It’ll eventually be ready. But if I want to start taking it seriously, I need to incorporate it into my weekly activities. I need to make it a priority and work on it a little bit each day.
That’s the difference between a dream or idea you’re taking seriously and one that you’re dabbling with. An idea that has weight will shove itself into your everyday activities. A dream you’re dabbling with will fall off the radar when times get busy.
Where does your idea/dream fall on that spectrum? Are you making progress on it? Or has it fallen onto the back burners of your life while other things compete for your attention?
