Renegotiate Your Agreement with Time
I’ve long wondered about time, our use of it, our agreement with it—conscious or not. So many feel they never have enough time to do what they really could do with a creative life. Many wonder, even more these days, where the time goes.
So this post today proposed a radical idea: You have the power to renegotiate your agreement with the crazy maker called time.
I got this idea from a very creative friend who, one day, told me, “I’m renegotiating my agreement with time in my life.” I’d never heard of such a thing. Weren’t we all victims of time, all the time? Weren’t we subject to its whimsy? The days we never get anything done versus the days we sail through—do we really control that?
When I retired from teaching and coaching full time two years ago, I thought I’d have more space in my life, more time to write and paint. Ha! That’s when I naively decided to re-enter the publishing world and release two books, back to back, within six months of each other. So instead of lots of time, the opposite became true. There was so much more to take care of, if I wanted to do these releases well—which I did. I became a slave to time, in a way, as my writing life delivered so much more input than it ever had.
Many days, it felt like there was no way to keep up.
But that eventually became the key: Once I accept that I’ll never keep up, a kind of relief comes. I step back. I give up the angst of doing it all. And I take a look at my relationship with time, specially for this new goal in my writing life: learning how the publishing industry works today and doing full justice to my new books.
What time DO you have?
I’m a super responsible person and I have always been told I do the work (read: accomplish the goals) of ten people. Our culture, especially in the US, is all about accomplishment. I’ve felt proud of my drive and reaching my goals, yes. But one thing I learned in my two book launches these past months is that there’s always more you can do.
The information streams are endless. If we’re attempting something new, if we feel we must keep up with what’s happening (because that’s what any intelligent citizen/creative person/responsible being would do), it’s a doom scenario, in my view. The streams become rivers become oceans, faster than you can blink. We can easily drown.
If I follow my friend’s idea of taking charge of time, and this isn’t all about intense scheduling, by the way, it comes down to choice.
First, not trying to do it all. Second, being super aware of what’s really important in the time you have. She suggested a time log as a next step. Yuck, I thought, where’s the fun in that? And who has time for it, anyway? But . . . she was good at this time thing, so I tried.
Have you ever made a time log? I don’t mean a calendar of events and duties you have to show up for, but an actual accounting of where you spend your time. Every day, every minute.
I have to say: It was eye opening.
I’ll share a tiny peak at my log for just one weekday these past six months, as I prepared for the book launch:
Write down my dreams (2 minutes)
Journal (I was doing The Artist’s Way again as a way to reinvigorate my creative practice) (45 minutes)
Do my spiritual practice (20 minutes)
Get dressed (5 minutes—I’m rather minimalist about this)
Get breakfast (15 minutes or less)
Read emails from my publicist and coach and respond (2 hours)
Prepare Canva graphics for a Goodreads giveaway and to repurpose podcast interview quotes (1-1/2 hours)
Be interviewed on a podcast (2 hours, including prep)
Walk my three miles (1 hour)
Work on promotion for the launch (2 hours)
Draft and begin to revise my next Substack, including research (3 hours)
Text a friend who is ill, arrange to bring her homemade soup, make a big pot of soup (2 hours—done between other things)
Respond on social media (30 minutes)
Post on social media (45 minutes)
Make the dogs’ meal (5 minutes)
Research and respond to emails about new podcast invites (45 minutes)
Shovel out the backyard (snowstorm) for the dogs to go out, let them in and out (20 minutes shoveling, constant door opening)
Water houseplants (15 minutes)
Think about lunch, do breakfast dishes; clean up the kitchen (20 minutes)
Look through my novel for excerpts to read for the launch (45 minutes)
Practice reading those excerpts out loud (20 minutes)
Respond to one of my writer’s group (45 minutes)
Catch up on social media again (30 minutes)
Put away the Whole Foods delivery (25 minutes)
Dinner prep (40 minutes)
Read a book during dinner (1 hour)
OK, deep breath—whew. Don’t do the math.
It totals an impossible amount, which, when I realized it, made sense—I wasn’t getting enough sleep. Trying to be a good dog mom (my son is grown and out of the house now), writer, student of the coach I hired, housekeeper, friend, spouse, and a healthy person. Not working.
Good reasons for every single thing I chose to do. Even the social media scrolling and liking and commenting was key to building the community I would need at publication. No way I could skip time with my family. Or eat. Right?
Five at the most
I joke with a close friend about our “plates in the air.” She’s managing health problems, a leadership volunteer position in her community, an elderly mom, her kids and partner, and a thousand other things she loves. But she’s got too many plates spinning in the air above her head. She’s constantly overwhelmed.
The first thing I realized from the time log was that each task felt equal in priority. I had not chosen those that meant the most to me and made them the most important. I also hadn’t separated the tasks that required a learning curve from those that were routine.
Everyone triages in some way—deciding what to do first, for instance. But triaging consciously lets me separate tasks into types. Some required that start-up energy, the learning curve mentioned above. These took a certain kind of time, and fresh brain power, and often emotional stamina. Too many, and I wore out faster.
Then there were tasks I could do in my sleep (like making that soup).
My time-aware friend said, “Have only five of the learning curve tasks at one time.”
Examples: when my son was having trouble at school, it necessitated family meetings and more intense homework help. When I began working with my publicity team, I had so much to learn about today’s publishing world. Starting or restarting a new exercise program or changing my diet meant that task became a plate in the air for me. Definitely more time-consuming, because it was new.
My friend said, “To control your time, limit the amount of those particular plates in the air.” Routine tasks do not count, because they require so much less effort and energy.
When I looked at my log, above, a few activities jumped right out, as my “plates in the air”:
Expanding my journaling time (doing The Artist’s Way again)
Preparing responses for my publicist and coach
Substack writing and revising (I love writing these to you each week, but they take a LOT of time)
Walking again—restarting my exercise
Learning Canva
Everything to do with the friend who was ill and needed soup
Everything to do with my new presence on social media
Promotion for my book launches
Why were these plates, to me?
The journaling was a great idea at the start of the year. A revisit of The Artist’s Way, a journey I’d loved before. I wanted to invigorate my writing practice, not completely lose it to marketing time. I’d decided to do the three morning pages, a weekly artist’s date, and as many exercises as I could.
The publicity work was brand new—definitely a plate in the air. Each idea, each task, required so much thinking, research, and design work. I had to ask lots of questions.
My walk was an attempt to get back into exercise at least three times a week after a hiatus. It always takes energy and attention to start something again, even if it’s familiar.
Promotion has never been a happy thing for me. As I figured out my new way to share about my book, it also took a lot of thought too. As well as emotional stamina.
I was happy to help my friend in the hospital. I know how to make soup with my eyes closed, but the extra time went into the delivery, the texts and emails about the delivery and how she was doing, and all the internal worrying that I tried to keep to a minimum but couldn’t, truthfully.
Posting regularly about my book on socials made me mind-numbingly anxious some days. I hated “pushing” anything at my followers, and I studied how other writers did this, so easily and effortlessly, trying to learn. I followed them, read their posts, noticed the toll, emotionally, then tried my own. Remembering to post regularly was difficult—the time went by and I forgot.
I had eight plates, according my time guru friend. Wasn’t that OK? Just a few over the limit. Nope, she said. You have to make room for the unexpected. And, of course, something happened to prove this. I got covid. Totally threw me out of the lifeboat.
Not an easy lesson. But I learned the wisdom of that margin of flexibility. Her five plates allows for that, for most humans. And talking to others about this, as I researched this post today, I learned about other kinds of crashes that can happen:
getting sick
getting injured (human or animal) and the resulting health visits, PT, whatever
financial troubles, such as tax time
major or minor repairs needed (one friend had a washing machine, their septic system, and their well pump break one after another in two weeks—that effectively put everything else on hold)
a health practitioner says you have to lose weight or change a diet
bad sleep for a few nights, which crashes everything else
an unexpected social event—someone’s birthday, retirement party
kids or grandkids needing emergency care
a vacation or unexpected travel for work
Doesn’t matter if the “plate” is good or bad—like vacations or kid time, which can be a delight—both kinds take up room in the air.
What about time-management techniques?
I love time-management techniques. I’ve tried so many. A few of my favs:
A friend told me about the tomato (pomodoro) technique of 30 minute intervals, back by the science of best productivity and creativity, and I was so convinced I got a tomato-shaped timer. (Emma Gannon, a favorite Substacker, uses a sand hourglass set for 30 minute intervals and told her subscribers, “I bought a new gorgeous pink sand-timer — this time for 30 minutes and it is really helping me focus at the moment. I’ve felt a bit scatty lately so I’ve been doing 30 minutes emails, 30 minutes writing, 30 minutes admin — really helps chunk my time with no distraction or multi-tasking.” It was great to try for a while—this tomato timer technique—but I found myself ignoring the timer when it went off! So much for that. I was too into my writing and didn’t want to lose my train of thought. Know how that is?
Time of day was another time management technique I tried. Find the time of day (morning, afternoon, evening) when you feel the most productive and creative, when the words (or art) flows easily. Then schedule your most important creative work then. I’m best in the early morning, almost right out of bed, and I still use the practice of writing first thing, but it didn’t seem to help me get more done, in the long run.
I loved the master list technique and still use it. The idea is to write everything (every single thing) you have to do on one sheet of paper then color code or triage the tasks. Each day, do one difficult and two small tasks from the list. This helped me get more done, but the list kept growing, so overall . . . not sure. I do like having everything in one place, though, compared to jotted in journal, on sticky notes, in the margins of desk notes or laptop desktop.
Sticky notes and other tech assists also intrigued me, but when I open my laptop, I really want to get right to writing, so I didn’t look at them very regularly.
Accountability partners are a wonderful helper for accomplishing more with writing, if you are deadline oriented like I am. I’ve worked with one other writer for many years—we send each other material weekly when we’re both deep in a new book or story. Some accountability partners just report on accomplishments that week or day, no sharing of writing, and this is also great.
Tons of techniques, and all of them work. (Here are some more! An older post on Medium. Another from The Writing Cooperative. And one from Writers Write. All good ideas.)
But in the end, they are just Band-Aids, to me. I needed something more radical to shift my relationship with time.
What about timing?
A good friend is incredibly generous; she says yes to practically any request. When we talk, she is usually swamped with what she’s doing for everyone else. She’s not getting her own goals met, which (given her generous nature) rides along OK for a while. Then I hear her intense frustration. “I have to stop this train,” she rages, and she does so, often abruptly, leaving detritus and hurt friends in her wake. Why did she suddenly disappear? they wonder.
Generosity makes the world go right, so no dissing that. But it’s all about timing. Whenever we say yes to a new activity, enthusiasm wipes out our sense of timing. Of course we can do it! But poor timing choices means we automatically add a plate to the air. It’s new, we have to make room for it, for the energy it will suck up. For a while at least, anything we’re busy inventing will shoot us out of our normal routine and require extra attention.
So, I’ve learned (the hard way) to train myself out of an automatic Yes! I began to practice stepping back, taking a day to assess what’s required if I do say yes, and what’s already in the air above my head.
This goes back to the idea that we’ll never have enough time, unless we consider our precious energy and resources.
Some examples from my list above: The Artist’s Way revisit was wonderful, happy, and terribly timed, and although I convinced myself I could shoehorn it in, not a chance. Making and delivering the soup was another joy spot, at first. I make really good soup. But delivering was intense—my friend lives about 2-1/2 hours south. (Eventually I realized I couldn’t do it. So I arranged with someone closer to my ill friend to receive my soup in Mason jars to store in her freezer and help with the delivery.)
It’s so hard to choose. It comes down to what you most want to get out of your time.
Fasting
Sometimes, renegotiating your relationship with time means fasting from anything new. At least for a while.
In these more extreme moments, I focus on one or two plates that I really want to take care of. I say no to everything else.
Recently, I got six invitations to speak or present workshops. I was also booked on over a dozen podcasts. The invites to speak involved travel. I decided I couldn’t do both, but which was more effective for my book promotion? I ended up saying no to all six invites. Unless they could be over Zoom, I couldn’t do them.
I hate this. I am not fond of the rigors of fasting—it reeks of deprivation. Lack of freedom.
Another example, a little closer to my heart, was my garden. I’m obsessed with my very big organic garden. Mostly the flowers and fruit. Like kids, most of the time, the plants need constant attention. But looking at my book launches last April, I knew I had to say no to the garden in some way. I couldn’t totally fast from it but how could I change my approach?
Renegotiating time
The contract I’d made with my garden fifteen years ago, when we moved here, said that I would give it my all. I would allow new ideas. I even would tolerate increased size each year. But more is not always better. My garden became a monster, albeit a beautiful one.
It’s on an acre of former farm fields adjacent to land trust property in the southern New Hampshire mountains, about 90 minutes from Boston. The land sweeps me off my feet with its beauty, and I created a 3500 square feet area of cultivated flower, fruit, and vegetable beds, in full sun, plus a small orchard and greenhouse.
It’s a commitment that makes me very happy. It also demands constant attention. Certain months demand even more, such as early spring when all the clean up and planting begins. The fruit trees and berries also need early attention and the greenhouse needs daily watering.
Last April, all the book launch work began. It was a huge plate spinning in the air above my head. I asked myself, what could not happen in the garden this spring? I decided to ignore all the perennial flower beds, just lay compost right on top of the winter debris and do zero weeding or cleanup.
I also asked for help—a good friend came for a few days to shovel compost and get the vegetable beds ready for planting.
Instead of my do-all approach to the garden, I let go of any perfection. In May and June, as the perennials began emerging, the garden looked messier than usual. By July, the perennial growth covered everything so completely, I couldn’t even tell I’d skipped a step. Of course, this spring, a year later, I’m reaping a certain amount of karma from that decision with very happy weeds. But it was necessary at the time.
Time is illusive
What did I learn from my year of time renegotiation? First, time is an illusion. It’s totally subjective (just think of times you are waiting for someone and it drags, versus times when you are rushed and it speeds up). I can’t be a slave to an illusion—I have to take back control of my creative life.
Second, I can’t do it all or do it perfectly. Hard lesson for me—maybe you too? I have to sometimes skip the weeding and trust the flowers will survive and thrive anyway.
Third, more than five plates in the air at any one time is what makes me a madwoman. It’s not the individual tasks, it’s how many there are.
Fourth, I have to choose. I have to say no in order to say yes to what means the most to me.
Looking back on this past year, with both my novels now launched and successful, I feel very good about my time choices. No one died or even got hurt. I still have my friends and family, I completed my big milestone goals, and I feel great about them. I was able to put my all into these priorities, because I said no to others.
And now, it’s a beautiful day. I’m going out to the garden to tackle some of those weeds.
Your Weekly Writing Exercise
Time is a bandit. Cramming writing into a full life of parenting, eldercare, job, healthcare, fun, whatever fills your day, seems impossible sometimes. But time is also subjective. If you want to get a reality check on how many plates you have in the air right now, try the list I used above.
It’s kind of like making a food diary, writing down everything you eat for one day or one week.
Track your activities—everything you do. You can approach this just as a list of types of tasks or activities. Or you can get into portions, how much time each takes.
Once you have your list, consider which activities require creating energy—reinvention or design or development time. Versus routine or maintenance time. Consider how many of those plates you have in the air.
This is especially helpful if you’re trying to make your writing a priority.