Harkening back, as I tend to do in this Blog, I remember the Association singing a tune called “Time for Livin”.  The lyric “I took off my watch and found I had all the time in the world” from that song has been my defense against this ever dwindling resource for about two years now.  Of course it raises another lyrical question from Chicago “Does anybody really know what time it is?”

As all this zooms over the heads of my younger readers, I will leave the past and Spring forward.  What’s up with this Daylight Savings time? Do we really think we can “turn back the hands of time” (sorry I couldn’t resist)  or in this case leap forward an hour into the future just by changing our clocks.  In Arizona we don’t pretend to have control over the timing of the earth’s rotation.  But that causes problems with our fellow states.  They think WE are the odd balls.  You see by staying the same we become different with every time change.  Part of the year we are the same as California, other times we are 1 hour ahead.  In Chicago it’s a 1 hour difference or a 2 hour difference.  In New York City it’s 2 hours Or 3.  Of course, as we all know, Eastern time is the only time that matters so why do we even bother with these fly over zones. 

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s really cool to get in a time machine in the Fall and arrive in Vegas 5 minutes before I left Phoenix.  If I could only get the final scores before I left and get those bets down at the sport book right when I land…I could make a killing.

Okay, okay, enough of the time paradox!  What’s this got to do with writing? 

It’s simple.  There will NEVER be enough time to do everything you are supposed to do.  On the other hand, if you start measuring YOUR movement instead of worrying about the earth’s movement, you may just find that you get more of what YOU NEED to get done than you ever thought possible.

If you’re like me and you have dozens of people competing for your attention.  Pleading, demanding and/or coercing you to spend YOUR time on their priorities before the sun appears on the horizon(You know it’s really not “rising”, right?).  Don’t pretend that your interests can be served tomorrow because as soon as tomorrow gets here, it’s today and you’re just too busy today.

Alright, enough of the double speak.  Here’s the deal.  Write down 10(or 20 or however many) things that YOU NEED to accomplish…RIGHT NOW.  Then start checking them off as you accomplish them.   That’s it.  That’s all you have to do.  Your subconcious will log these things as YOUR goals and you will start to accomplish them.  Keep the goals small and specific(at least at the start), like maybe, “come up with the opening paragraph of my next book, chapter, article” or “investigate the mayan calendar” or “go bowling” or “work on the report my boss is waiting for so I don’t get fired”.

One last thing, EVERY book and speaker on this subject will tell you to assign a DEADline for each of these tasks.  I don’t do that, I let my subconscious deal with scheduling.  You see when DEATH is on the line I would much rather rely on measurements from my internal clock than the time pieces of a society that still believes you can save daylight.  
 

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