This was written as a companion piece to a post about an epiphany I had when I decided to commit a small amount of time every day to learning to play the guitar. The result shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did, probably because some things, like leaning an instrument, provide feedback on a remarkably short timeline. You can read that post here.
Here were talking about how to find the time to work on our side hustles, projects anything really that might contribute towards a life lived on your terms.
We all have busy lives what with the day job, chores, commitments with family and friends and all the other stuff we’ve got going on in our lives. To even think of how we’re going to carve out time for anything else seems like an impossible task.
I’m here to tell you it can be done. Not without sacrifice, but you don’t have to give up all your free time.
In my late thirties and going nowhere fast, the reality hit me that if I didn’t find my way out of the rat race soon, I never would. I decided that I was going to stop watching TV after 9pm Monday to Thursday. My wife was half on board and we were busy with the usual evening chores so by the time the kids were in bed and we were ready to do it all again the next day it was usually past 10pm.
Don’t get me wrong, there were many exceptions, especially during the winter when the days are short and the nights are long, and we got sucked into binging a series on Netflix. That and the fact that I’m a legendary procrastinator. I can procrastinate like it’s my job! Sometimes I was just so tired after my working day I just couldn’t bring myself to sit down in front of my laptop.
Anyway, I figured I could do at least an hour a day. When you consider an hour a day is over three hundred hours a year, it’s easy to see the opportunity if you can conceive that you could do something useful with three hundred hours.
The key to making this work and not feel like a chore is having something to focus on.
It’s about knowing what you’re going after, and why. What you’re trying to achieve, how you’re going to achieve it, knowing that you’re going to get humbled with challenges to overcome along the way. If you can accept that challenge, you’re half way there.
Once you know what you’re working towards, and accepted the challenge, it becomes a question of what you’re prepared to do if you know you can’t fail?
We’re not talking about mindless delusional persistence.We’re talking about intelligent action, critical thinking, and a willingness to take on the challenge, an persist long enough to see results you can measure and build on.
When you accept that mindset, success on some level becomes almost inevitable.
When you commit to putting in the time and you’ve taken the time to figure out what you want to do, you can make a plan. When you have a plan you can work on it one step at a time, and at any given moment, you know what you should be working on, and you don’t waste time fumbling around in the dark.
Once I got my sh1t together and I knew what I was working on, I would take notes on my phone during the day. Toilet breaks, lunch breaks, any time a kernel of an idea came to me, I wasted no time getting a note on my phone. At the end of the day during that hour in the evening, I would take those often scrambled notes and add some context.
Some days were more productive than others and I’d still be working past midnight. Sometimes weeks went by when I did nothing. I was still able to move forward without giving up or losing faith in what I was doing, even when I realised my first project was wrong for me, and I had to do a complete U turn after 6 months of research and skill building. It didn’t matter, because I was prepared to fail, multiple times if I had to.
One thing was absolutely certain beyond all doubt. Doing something consistently over time, would get me closer to my goals than doing nothing. I couldn’t fail to achieve something.
At the top of the mountain the view is spectacular, but it’s pretty good half way up too.
So we return to that earlier question; what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
If you want to create a life lived on your terms, but you don’t know where to start, the Action Frameworks Beginners Guide can help. You can find it here.
