Writing like I’m Running out of Time (Management)

I promise I have been writing, but just not on the blog. I recognize that I have issues when it comes to time management with my writing and creating in general. My latest creating endeavors have left me on Scrivener and with open sketchbooks in the wee hours of the morning. Now, there is a case for those who thrive when the moon is up and everyone else is asleep, but I have stayed up until 5 o’clock in the morning on one occasion. Yeah, that’s not good. There’s a big difference between scheduling to stay up to 1 AM and seeing the sun come up after staring at a screen all night and feeling like death the next day. Also, I have had instances when I have had Scrivener open all day and I could not get a word down or it came in splotches. It seems like the best way to help myself is through time management. Sitting down and planning out your creative process may seem cumbersome or like it would suck the magic out of it, but it is really necessary especially for those of us that want to make a profession out of it, part-time or full-time. It doesn’t matter if your profession allows you to show up in yoga pants and/or not leave the house, but what matters is that you show up. Even as I’m saying this, I’m beating myself over the head for all the times I was too scared to show up. Since I realized that budgeting my time is a necessity, I decided to invest in a planning system that worked for me. Enter the Passion Planner.

Just so you know, I am not being paid to talk about the Passion Planner. I just happen to love the product and if you have a different planning system that works for you, that’s great! I heard Kevin Hart say in an interview that he looks at his watch as a representation of his time and that is why it screams priceless, valuable, and baller. I decided to take on the same mentality, but instead of buying a Rolex I wanted to make the place where I log my time be a representation of my time. That is why I bought a Sunrise Gold Passion Planner. Whenever I look at it, my time is symbolized as Golden. In the words of Jill Scott, I’m living my life like it’s golden. Whenever I go to write in my planner, I am reminded of the value of my time and it pressures me to make the most of today and plot out tomorrow, as well as the rest of my week. I’m still trying to lock down a writing system that works for me with my novel in progress and this blog. However, when I started this blog, my intentions were never to be perfect, but to be real about my struggles, other creatives’ struggles, as well as our triumphs. I know that I do not have all the answers and that’s why I don’t want to just show you how I work or what I make. I also want you to see the bloggers I follow, the Facebook groups that I am part of, the articles I obsessively save on Pocket, and my ADD mechanism as a multipotentialite (I am interested in doing lots of things and it’s tough to be a renaissance woman when the idea is not popular. Refer to the many tab subjects on this blog). We are all pulling our hair out and trying to find what works, but when we do find that plot structure that works for our book, the dance step that magnifies the choreography, or whatever else it could be, the feeling is indescribable. My hope is that as I learn to refine my creative process and output, we can feel a sense of comfort in the fact that we all mess up. However, we can always get back up and try again. I urge you to keep creating and to keep xscaping no matter how many times you fall, get back up again!