Where Does my Time Go?

Hours in a day – 24 hours
Sleep Time – 7 hours
Novel Writing – 5 hours
Blog Surfing – 2 hours
Reading – 2 hours
Miscellaneous Time Left – 8 hours

Managing Sleep Time

My time management sucks. The hours above are how I try to balance my day and I don’t think any of it is unreasonable. In fact, I usually get substantially less than 7 hours of sleep each night. 6 hours is practically sleeping in. That leaves me with over 16 hours of time to do the things I need to do. What the hell then am I doing wrong?

Managing Creative Writing Time

I schedule myself 5 hours a day for writing my novel. There are many fantastic writers who have written fantastic books on how to write. Unfortunately, they all seem to believe their way is the only way and there are dramatic differences between them. Stephen King has been somewhat successful, and his book “On Writing,” is just about the best book out there on how to write. For this discussion, I’ll stick with his

According to Mr. King, a writer should write at least 2,000 words a day, but he then backtracks a bit and gives new writers a break and says they should feel accomplished if they’ve written 1,000 words per day. I’m writing my first novel, but I don’t consider myself a new writer, so I’ve set my goal smack dab in the middle with a 1,500 a day goal. To be more precise, my goal is 1,500 words or 5 hours, whichever comes first. What if I get writer’s block? Well, when it comes to writer’s block, it was unanimous among all the books on writing that I’ve read. Every single one said, if you have writer’s block, that you should write anyway. Sure, what you write may be pure crap, but that’s okay. Throw it in the trash and do it all over again. Each one stressed a writer must write no matter what.

I strive to live by these rules, but it just doesn’t seem to happen. My 5 hour per day/1,500 word goal is just not happening. Even at Stephen King’s suggested goal of 1,000 words per day, I struggle. Why? I’m not sure. It’s frustrating to struggle doing something you love.

Managing my Blogging Time

When it comes to writing, I try to leave every weekday open for writing my novel, therefore I write nearly all my posts on Sunday afternoons. When I refer to managing my blogging time, I am speaking specifically about reading posts on other blogs that I follow. I follow nearly 200 blogs so, thankfully, not everybody posts every day. Each day I try to get to all the blogs I follow who have recent posts. Some days I’m successful, some days I’m not. You would think 2 hours a day would be enough. I rarely read other blogs on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Skipping them on Friday allows me the extra time to get other stuff done, such as housework or laundry. Saturday and Sunday I devote spending my time with Maurice.

Managing Reading Time

My goal this year was to read 52 books – one book a week. That does not seem all that much, but I haven’t been even close to successful. Reading, reading, reading was the other thing that books on writing unanimously agreed upon. My 52 books a year goal was also based on Stephen King. I figured that if he is able to read 1 book a week, that I certainly should be able to. I’m sure he’s a much busier man than me. At one time, when I was much younger, I easily read 2 books a week. I don’t know why I’m struggling now. Does reduced reading speed and reduced comprehension come with age? I find this very frustrating.

Managing the Other 8 Hours

If I was to do all the tasks I listed above, and that’s a big IF, I would be left with 8 or more hours a day to do as I please. Sure, there’s always housework, exercising, cooking, eating, and more, but 8 hours is a good long time. I’m a huge Walking Dead fan, but beyond that I am not much of a TV watcher. I’ve already established that I don’t use the full hours that I’ve allotted to sleeping, creative writing, reading blogs, and reading fiction, so why don’t I feel like I have these 8 hours? They must exist somewhere, but I’ve looked in the closets, under the couch and throughout the rest of the apartment and cannot find them anywhere.

My Time Management Sucks

My entire life I’ve been terrible with money and time. It’s easy to see where my money has gone, but not so easy to see where my time has gone. Everything on this list is important to me, but it is such a struggle. I think maybe I should hire an efficiency expert or a life coach. I’d make some calls, but I just don’t have the time.