#HelloEarthlings,
Since I work for myself I have all the time in the world to work on my own projects, or so I thought. I think the goal of most people is to make enough money to make enough time to work on things they “love” however for most, this simply isn’t a reality.
Where does my time go?
I work as a content creation specialist for plenty of major brands. This obviously takes up a huge chunk of my time and usually means I have to work on my “own projects” only after I have finished with the “bread winner” content.
However, sometimes you find yourself creatively pooped and produce crap content which reflects poorly on your own projects. After all, you need to dedicate quality time to your projects in order to do it justice.
Lately however, I have had a massive increase of orders flow through my inbox. I’ve been working on some seriously technical information and also had an increase of content requests from my current clients as well. The reason, because I’m really good at what I do.
But with all this increase of work, there is less time to spend on my own work. So what is my solution?
The solution to the problem
For me, I have a few options at my disposal.
- Work on my projects after hours – Sometimes I only have this option available, especially during high “content” seasons. I am very picky with my projects I work on after I have already done an eight hour shift creating content. I usually leave this option available for my “non-writing” endeavors such as Doodling or Making Music. This not only serves as a distraction from writing, it boosts my creativity and relieves stress.
- Create Specific Days to Work on it – Sure, not everybody has the ability to say “I’m not working on Thursday” but I do! For those of you who has the ability to pick and choose which days they work, simply dedicate a full day in the week to work on something personal. I have certain days where I don’t have time sensitive work, so I simply clear my schedule, get in my most relaxed clothes, put on a pot of coffee and do all my heart desires! This way I don’t have any distractions from my clients and can provide the same level of quality I provide to my clients, but to my own work. In other words, I treat myself as one of my clients! Obviously, I do probono work on my own projects.
Conclusion
I don’t want to work for other people for the rest of my life. I am currently working on many different personal projects which I hope will completely give me dominance over my schedule. Right now I still need to dedicate a large portion of my week creating content for others. I’m okay with this…for now.
For me right now, I have to work with double the veracity in order to dominate my own time. It doesn’t matter how long I take, every day I do something that gets me closer to my goal.
I once read:
If you achieve 1% of your Goal every week, by the end of the year you’ll be 52% closer to Reaching your Goal
In other words, if you work consistently towards a goal, you’ll eventually reach it. Maybe you can’t dedicate hours upon hours of your time to your own projects, but if you dedicate enough quality time you will slowly but surely advance towards your goal. The only trick is to know what your goals are and which steps to take to get there.
Take the time to work on your own projects. You don’t want to be 80 years old one day, looking in the mirror asking: “What have I done with my life”.
Even if your projects never see the light of day, simply doing it will provide a great sense of satisfaction and one day, who knows, it might become as valuable as Van Gogh, who died without ever knowing how truly awesome his work was. However, if Van Gogh simply didn’t do it, other artists wouldn’t have been inspired and the world as we know it would have been completely different in one way or another.
Take time for you! You Deserve it!