Time For Myself

I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse, but, either way, I have an extensive set of interests and a wide range of pursuits, a benefit of which is that I'm rarely bored. I often have a hard time relating to folks who say they’re bored or that they don’t have anything to do.

Being wired this way has its perks, but it does come with some drawbacks. I often have a hard time deciding what to do next, and it can be challenging to find the time to enjoy everything I want to do.

As a result, I have stacks of unfinished books.

Mountains of unfinished projects.

And a list of other projects that I’ve yet to start.

For years, I’ve wished that the days were longer. I imagine you have, too, but no matter how it's sliced we each get the same 24 hours.

The only thing we can do is make the most of each one so, when I can, I double up. Last week was busy, and I'd hardly seen my wife, Julia. With the kids in pandemic-induced homeschool, it’s been forever since I’ve had her to myself.

By Friday, I was ready to trade my left arm for just a couple of minutes alone, but after being at the office all day, I still needed to show a couple of houses. The corona-rules say my clients can't ride with me, and the houses were on opposite ends of the county. With a solid hour in the car, I asked Julia to come with me, and we were able to steal a little time and spend it together.

I do this with my kids, too. I got divorced when they were still in daycare, and, for a while, I paid someone to drive them since it was 40 minutes from my house. Eventually, I realized that added up to a lot of time that I was missing with them, so I started driving them myself. "Car Time" has become some of our best time because there’s nobody else around, no distractions, and nothing to do but talk to each other. And then, on the return trip, I’ve got time to catch up on podcasts or return phone calls.

I’ve found ways to double-up elsewhere and steal bits of time, too. I aim to post a story on Facebook at least five days each week, but I often struggle to find the time to write. Last October, in my first round of GRIT, I reluctantly resorted to posting a couple of my context write-ups as my daily story.

My buddy Robert, who’s in his 2nd round of GRIT this month, has been reading my stuff for a long time. On FB earlier this week, I posted a story that caught his attention. His comment was, “repurposed context?” That’s right, my man. Repurpose, reuse, and roll forward, which gets to the concept of asset creation that we talk about so often. I needed a story for FB that day, I needed to mention work, and I was out of time. A slight tweak to a context I’d written a couple of days earlier and BOOM, it was done, and I was able to give a shout-out to some folks on my team.

That was no accident - I’ve learned to write my contexts such that they are relevant to our discussion here but also pertinent to a broader audience that reads it from a different point of view. In fact, I'll do the same with this post. Once written, twice shared, and I’ve managed to steal just a little bit of time from the clock that so relentlessly ticks forward.

Like the infamous doubling penny, when I do things like this for an entire month, I find the time I’ve created for myself has grown exponentially.