People are always telling me I get a lot done. They see my social media posts when I sell a story or when I finish knitting a sweater and they are like, “Wow, do you even sleep, bro?”
A lot of this is assymetrical insight. They see all the things they themselves don’t do, they only see the things I succeed at (and choose to broadcast.)
But there’s a deeper lesson about productivity here. Every thing you accomplish also means something un-accomplished.
I’m not talking about goofing off, either. When I bring up things I don’t do to be productive, the response is often, “Well, yeah, you aren’t wasting time watching TV!”
And it’s funny… I actually feel guilty about all the TV shows I haven’t watched and video games I haven’t played, because a great deal of my friends are talking about them.
But I find the time to spend three hours for sixteen weeks to watch every Browns game. (Not counting pre-season and yeah I watch those too.)
No one is going to accuse me of being over-productive on Sundays during football season.
And I am /not/ very far behind on YouTube videos, either.
But no, I mean there are VIRTUOUS and NECESSARY things I don’t do so I have time to write. I hardly ever cook. I outsource lawncare to my niece. I brush my hair about once a week. I shower every day I bike commute, but only for five minutes, no shampoo, no shaving. In the winter, when I don’t bike, I try to remember to shower once a week.
I am, like, decades behind on laundry. Brian does the darks and lights and I do the in-betweens, and let’s just say you rarely see us in grey. I don’t wash the dishes and I haven’t mopped since… uh… have I ever mopped? Since leaving home for college? I’m not sure.
Notice how a lot of this stuff is housework? We tend to downplay the huge time investment in chores, which is necessary work. Somehow that doesn’t translate into ‘I got stuff done’ as easily as work on creative endeavors. Just another way the man is keeping us down. (And ‘us’ in this case is of course my husband, who does most of the housework.) Anyway, I digress…
I cannot remember the last time I worked out, other than biking too and from work. It is literally the only thing keeping me from full-on sedentary.
I don’t wear make-up. I estimate I save at least 20 minutes getting ready in the morning via not wearing make up, not brushing my hair, not brushing my teeth… oops I just admitted that. Yeah, I pretty much roll out of bed, throw on clothes, get on bike. That’s it. Somehow I stay employed.
The thing is… if there’s something you want to achieve, and you can’t find time for it, you have to cut something else. It’s as hard as cutting away that awesome character who doesn’t advance the plot or that scene that muddies the ending but has a cool image. You cut it.
I’m fortunate in that I have so many things I can cut. I have a supportive spouse who picks up my slack and doesn’t kick me out for my slovenliness. I have reasonable health that I can get away with slothfulnesss. I have hair that people compliment when it hasn’t been washed or brushed for a week. (Really, it’s a superpower.)
But there was a time, not too distant in the past, that I felt like I had NO TIME to write. Before I went to Clarion, I would often lament in my diary about how oh, I have no time to write! If only I had time!
So what did I cut? I stopped sword-fighting. I stopped attending SCA events almost every weekend, which I did for a while. They weren’t as much fun as I wanted them to be, anyway. For a while I kept football, because that was one season, not all year, but after my illness, that fell away too, and now I can’t imagine how I had the time for it!
Another time sink was my habit of devoting all my energies to my day job, including working nights and weekends. These days I try to take a more balanced outlook, not to freak out like they’re going to burn me alive over a server stack if I don’t fix everything fast.
You choose not to do something else. You squeeze in five minutes, you make it a habit. I’ve heard other people say the same thing about exercise but hey, I don’t care as much about making time for exercise. 😛
The important thing is to remember it’s always a choice. We run into misery and self-blame when we pretend “do it all” was ever an option.
More on this subject: Your Time is Your Own
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