A Time Recipe

A friend came for dinner not that long ago and, on hearing that I had started yet another writing project, she exclaimed: ‘Do you have 30 hours in your days when we only have 24? How do you do it?!’
My first instinct was to reply: ‘Of course not. And honestly, I don’t know. When I have something that must be done, I find the time somehow.’

 

Pondering about it, my time management is not that ‘magical’. It is just another one of my recipes, a Time Recipe. Here are my key ingredients:
– Prioritisation
– Organisation
– Focus
– Sacrifice
Three cooking tools are essential: motivation, discipline and a positive mindset.

 

Tools:
Motivation, discipline and a positive mindset.
If you don’t believe in the who (you), the what (your ‘product’), and the why (your goal or purpose), then you are wasting your time. You must believe in yourself and in in your objective, and love what you are doing and target to accomplish. To put in the time and hard work required, you must be in the right mindset and find pleasure in what you do. If you don’t, you might as well just go out, have fun, and discover what your real passion is and worth dedicating your time to.

 

 

Ingredients:
My priorisation is based on the balance between interests and deadlines, though the deadlines weigh more as they get closer.

On organisation, I am lucky on that one, this comes quite naturally to me. I simply love setting up structures and schedules for the best efficiency on what needs to be done. I always allow for some flexibility though, because ‘life happens. Also, don’t forget to get the proportions right, otherwise you end up biting more than you can chew and it could ruin the whole dish for you.

Focus is not always the easiest to achieve these days. It used to be much simpler when mobile phone and internet were not a constant distraction. My solution was to stop all sound and light notifications on my mobile except for calls – based on the principle that in case of emergency, people call, and so I am immediately available in case of emergencies. I am still on my mobile way too much though for my taste.

Sacrifice. Now this is a tough one, and also the one that separate my daily job to my writing passion and aspiration. If you are committed to achieve your goals, it requires you to dedicate sufficient time for hard work, or training, or practice, or learning, or all of the above. Without fail, you will miss out on other activities you could have done during that time. It may be sleep, your Wednesday nights, your Saturday afternoons, your lunch breaks. That is when the cooking tools are the most essentials, because sometimes the sacrifices are very hard to make and maintain over time. For example, I am at my desk on Saturdays when in London, and in summer, I regularly miss out on picnics and barbecues with my friends. To compensate, I tend to organise my own… On evenings and Sundays!

 

Preparation:
Blend all the ingredients together in generous doses and get your project cooking. The cooking time and temperature depend on your product and allocated time, of course, but it is a good idea to set yourself some tangible targets along the way, and keep a clear mind of what your finished product is meant to be. Some marking stones enable you to keep track of your progress, and in turn having made some progress boost your motivation. Keep the cooking time as an indication only and remain flexible, checking regularly: the marking stones are here to help you adjust it to reality. I recommend you start with an idea of how long your project will take, but don’t be too hard with yourself if this has to change. As I wrote before, no dish is ever going to be exactly the same and life happens. Just adjust the end goal timing, and keep going.

 

Result:
With an efficient time management in tune with my life, I can see progress and growth daily in my writing (ad)ventures. Now, I do get to see big results of my work immediately – some article take a week to write, a screenplay 6 months, and for the Gatekeepers trilogy, about 3 years – but eventually I get there. I juggle successfully several types of projects beside my a 4-day-a-week job, all without losing my passion and drive or feeling overwhelmed. This is also an achievement in itself.

 

So, whatever the efforts, discipline and sacrifices, if I know it is worth my time, I will go for it. Time is your most precious asset, and the valuable currency in today’s world. It has an expiry date though, so we should spend it with care on what and who we value most and bring us real happiness and growth. Always good to save some for we need it for ourselves, and spare some for others in need too.

Thank you for reading,
Yours, Virginie

 

P.S.: check out the video below by Unkle Adams. Simple, but good.