How to juggle writing with other activities

  

Date Posted: 11/9/2012 2:45:30 PM

Posted By: sashoo  Membership Level: Silver  Total Points: 382

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You have the passion for writing, yes, but you still are held onto some job, or some other activity—you are a parent, with dependents including your cat and dog to look after; you are a student, with enough assignments to complete; or you, perhaps, are a celebrity, with more than sufficient fans to entertain. As it is, there certainly is no time left for you to freelance-write. There is no single second, at your disposal, to research or write just about anything. You, now, are considering killing your writing passion—bad idea. There is good news for you; you certainly can combine activities (even though you are not a superman) and still make it. You can juggle writing with just about anything, while not feeling drained off of energy.

Prioritize

Let things that matter to you come first. If writing is, so be it. I mean, if you have to write first thing in the morning before going to work, just do it. Do it before attending your classes either, if you are a student—after all, it is but a priority that matters more to you. Besides, not only will you be able to ‘quench’ your passion, but you also will have enough room for your other activities—working, studying, and looking after kids plus pets (if you have any).

Or, if you are not a morning person—you can’t wake up that early, you can make use of your evenings. I should presume that if you don’t get up early, you should go to bed late (it all depends with what works for you, though). The point is, you ought to analyze your strengths and well utilize them to work for you—to help create time for you to write.

Get committed and motivated

Chances are high that if you are not committed to doing something, you might

not do it altogether. Commitment is what sets the pace for you to attain your goal. In fact, commitment automatically creates motivation—committed individuals usually are motivated. Plus, there is no shortcut to this, even if I’d have wished there was one.

Of course, in freelance-writing, you are not going to have someone police you around, unlike your day job. Here, you are your own boss, which is why it truly should take commitment to really make it. While this may be quite tricky (considering that your ultra-cozy couch or that epic movie may want to hold you back), you have to act like you are being supervised. You have to make it a habit to write something a day regardless of your busy schedule.

Sacrifice

Have you ever had to lay off some of your friends because they were a time waster? Or have you ever wanted to give up something at the expense of getting another? If you have not, this, perhaps, may be a perfect time for you to re-consider it. If friends do consume enough of your time, you might want to excuse yourself from them. If it’s your phone that is an obstacle to you, even making you chat for hours, you may consider ‘rationing’ the time spent on it. If even it’s Facebook, or Twitter, or some other social network that’s making you a slave to time, you have to devise ways of limiting time spent on those.

Nothing good in life will come so easily; period. If you don’t want your writing passion to die while juggling other activities, you certainly should embrace the aforementioned tips.

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