The balancing act. How do you balance your writing time with everything else in your life--including, kids, job, book promotion
This is a great topic for me, and something I have been wrestling with of late. So much so, that I have finally been forced to look at my priorities and make some difficult decisions.
Let me back up a bit, and show you a typical day in my life:
5:00 - wake
5:00 - 6:00 - Blog, read, check day joy email, check personal email, write morning pages (when I can squeeze it in)
6:00 - 6:45 - Get ready for work
6:45 - 7:15 - take kids to school, go to the day job
7:15 - 5:30pm - Day job, filled with a level of stress that is hard to imagine. IF I take a lunch, I'll check email and make sure I've got things to my editors, etc.
5:30 - 7:30 - most days I spend the next few hours taking kids to various activities, running errands, and squeezing in time for research, reading, or anything writing related that I can
7:30 - 8:00 - dinner, tidy house
8:00 - 9:30 - blog, book promo, writing, or anything else I can squeeze in. I often assist the kids regarding homework as needed too
9:30 - 10 - plan out the next day, prep whatever I can
10:00 - hang out with husband watching TV
11:00 - CRASH so I can do it again.
Can you see the BIG problem with this Monday through Friday schedule? Yea, that's right...there is NO WRITING TIME. And very little promo time. And no time for the aspects of healthy living (exercise, meditation, "play-time", sleep) that are so important to me. When I need to get these done, or when the day job spins into an even higher gear, the thing that gives is typically sleep.
BAD PLAN.
After many many weeks of this schedule, and the ensuing stress of missing writing deadlines and not having the "room" to fulfill my goals, I have had to take a long, hard, look at my life. The result of that introspection? Complete clarity on what needs to change AND a plan to change it.
I took time to develop my professional goals - both as they relate to the day job, and to my writing life. I also took time to do some long-range planning, and over the past several weeks have become exceptionally clear on my goals.
This has lead to some exciting things in my life - most of which I can't yet talk about. But, suffice it to say that in the upcoming months, I will have more time to focus on the things that are really important to me.
Enough about me....how do you balance everything? For more on this topic, check out Sandra's from yesterday, and Katrina's post tomorrow.
