168

Haven’t decided if I’m going to be one of those Monday Motivation post guys. While I’m trying to have a more positive outlook, I’m not sure if that type post is for me or not. For this Monday, then, I at least want to give you someone to think about. Maybe it will be motivating, but it won’t be one of those Successories Posters. OK. On with the post.

There’s plenty of inequality in the world and many discussions on different ways to combat this. This post is not an essay on how to solve that problem.  Instead, I’m going to write about the one thing we have that is the same – 168 hours in a week. Doesn’t matter if you’re Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffet or Greg Fowler, you have 7 days in a week with 24 in hours each day, and  7 x 24= 168. How you spend those 168 hours is the difference between making progress or not.

Ten days ago I set a goal of posting a blog post every weekday. One point of this action was actually to exercise my writing skills, which had grown rusty. So far, this is working, as I have posted every day since I started. The best part is the desire to write has returned, along with bursts of creativity and inspiration.

Therefore, this week is critical, and the word of the week is Focus.  I have some momentum, and I need to keep it up. However, I’ve also recognized that publishing content five days a week is difficult. For example, a 250-300 word post takes me at least an hour and a half to prepare. Roughly half of that time is creating the content and the other half is editing and preparing images to include with the post.

I’ve been able to pull this off because some of the posts were already works-in-progress (the vault I referenced in my post A Lesson from a Piano and a Microphone 1983) and my running has been in recovery mode (meaning less) since my marathon two weeks ago. I’m now ready to train hard again, with a half marathon target in six weeks. Along with extra daylight in the evenings, it will be easy for me to be sidetracked this week. Fortunately, I have some strategies to optimize my writing time which I’ll be giving a shot.

I also decided to do look at where I spend my time every week.

Here is my rough weekday time budget:

• Day job: 8-9 hours
• Commute: 1.5 hours
• Workout: 1 to 1.5 hours
• Sleep: 6.5 hours (the minimum I can pull off long-term)
• Family/food/fun: 5.5 to 6 hours

Here is a weekend day:

• Sleep: 6.5 to 7 hours
• Workout: 2 to 2.5 hours
• Family/food/fun/yardwork/church/tri-dad/soccer dad: 14.5 to 16 hours

This math comes out to roughly 8 hours and 40 minutes average per day for eating, showering, chores, and time with the family. This is really 5-6 hours/day on weekdays and 14-16 hours/day on the weekends.

When I map it out like this, I definitely have enough time to make progress as a writer. Still, I want to be efficient, with a goal to reduce the weekday time needed to produce the blog by at least half. I’m experimenting with some systems other writers have suggested. Also, I will need to become a faster writer in addition to spending more time on the weekends preparing my weekday posts. I also have a secret weapon that I’ll discuss later. The ultimate goal is to waste as little time as possible.

So what about you? Feel like you have no time to accomplish anything? Map out your week like this and see for real. I bet you’ll easily have one to two hours per day to put toward a new goal. Then you have no excuse. Start taking action for one hour at a time.

Thanks for reading.

Greg

P.S. A similar exercise with my finances did not yield such a surplus! LOL!