Indie Author Weekly

170: 3 steps to make time for creative pursuits when "life is life-ing"

• Sagan Morrow • Episode 171

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How can you prioritize writing (or any creative pursuit, or a solopreneur business, or a passion project, or a hobby, etc) when life “gets in the way”?

In this episode, learn my 3-step strategy for how to DO this — plus a personal example of this in action with my own writing projects.

Want help with unpacking mindset blocks, setting and upholding boundaries, strategizing plans, and keeping accountable to what you want from you life? I’m here to support you! Book a coaching call: https://saganmorrow.com/coaching/ 


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Welcome to the indie author weekly podcast where I take you on the behind the scenes journey of my adventures as an indie author. I'm your host Sagan Morrow, and I'm an eighth time polyamorous romcom. Author Plus, I've also written several business books for solopreneurs. Let's dive into this episode. Today I want to talk about how to prioritize writing or any type of creative pursuit or a business when life is lighting. This was sparked by a conversation that I recently had with one of my coaching clients. So in case you are new around here, when I'm not reading novels, I do mindset coaching and Filipina coaching. So one of my clients recently came to me with this question about how to prioritize her business when life gets in the way. She really wants to ensure that she's working on her business and making great progress on it, but some personal life things have come up out of the blue and they've really taken the steering wheel from her they've really taken a priority and she wants to ensure that there's more of a balance in what she's doing. This is the type of thing that I actually see happen quite a lot for many solopreneurs in the work that I do with solopreneurs because their business and their life are so deeply integrated. With which is a great thing. But because of that, it often means that there's a challenge in striking a good balance between work and life. So I love this whole question of how do we prioritize something when life is life and and I think that this will probably relate to many, many people, regardless of whether you are a business owner, because when you have any type of creative pursuit or hobbies, if you're multi passionate, or if you simply just have a lot of different things going on in your personal life, your professional life, but it can be really difficult to navigate this. So my client and I had a great, great conversation about this topic of how to prioritize her business when life is leaving. And I would like to approach this today. For our purposes, with this whole concept of how do you make time for your creative pursuits and your passions when life gets in the way? Because it's gonna stick in the author weekly podcast, and I have been making very slow progress on my novels over the past few years, basically, since the pandemic started compared to previously when I was just writing books and publishing them and moving on to the next one and making very fast progress. Life gets in the way, right. And so this has definitely been something that's been on my mind, as I've mentioned previously on the podcast numerous times. So I think that this is a really great, great thing to address. And it's something again, that I think we can all relate to. So I have here a very general three step overview of what I recommended to this client, and she's been implementing it, she really liked this whole sort of process. And I think that it's gonna be helpful for you as well. I know that it is helpful for me. So number one, if life is like and getting in the way of anything that you might be doing, whether it's a hobby or your own business or anything else, the first thing to do is to start with your personal life, because when life is life, it is not just going to magically go away on its own. It is still there. And so it's really important to prioritize that but also recognize it. So here we want to do things like block off your calendar with all of your personal life requirements. So we're going to do that before getting to your creative pursuit or your business, whatever it might happen to be. So for our purposes today against this being the other weekly podcast, if you happen to be wanting to write a novel, then before you even put into your schedule, which days you want to be working on your novel or what time of day you want to do it. Instead look at what have I already committed to what are my previous obligations, what types of things are coming up in my personal life? So this is going to help you to be realistic of how your creative pursuits or your business is going to fit into your existing schedule and your and your needs, your lifestyle needs. So it's really good. It's always great to really think about what we want for our personal life into the future, right to envision our ideal lifestyle and what that can look like. And it's really important that we don't neglect what the reality of the situation is, right now, at this point in time. And this can mean absolutely anything like anything that may be going on in your personal life. You know, for example, if you are a parent with little kids, then your life is probably going to look very different compared to someone who is child free. Your amount of time and that kind of thing is going to be really focused on a small child because it depends on you, right? So really looking at all of these different types of things of what is my reality and blocking other schedule based on that before you even think about your business or creative pursuits. So that is the first the first thing to do. Step two, is to then look at all of the life is life and stuff that is currently happening for you and address what it is that you do and do not want to be doing. So kind of differentiate it separated out between okay, I really enjoy doing these types of things. They're coming up in my life and even the lightest light and I want to put my time and energy towards them. Versus latest lighting. These things are coming up and I wish I did not have to deal with them. Okay. So try to kind of separate those out. And then I want you to really ask yourself, these things that I do not want to be doing. Are they actually a requirement of me? Or is this something that someone else can do? Or maybe I can add it in with something else? Or is this a hard boundary that I don't actually need to do it all? Or is this a communication issue or a respect issue or a boundaries issue? So let's break these down. If you're looking at different things in your personal life that right now you feel an obligation to you feel like you have to do them even though you don't want to do them. They're getting in the way of your creative pursuit or your business, whatever it may be. That I want you to kind of consider is this actually true that this is a requirement of me? In this first sort of example here at this question, where you know, we say is this something that someone else can do or can I add it into something else? A very simple example can be something like grocery shopping, maybe you hate grocery shopping. It's like the worst thing in the world for you and you are so frustrated with everything. I have to do it. There's absolutely no other option someone someone needs to do it. Well, in that case, could you get grocery delivery, which I mean at least hearing families it's like less than $10 to do it, which is pretty good deal especially you can see the amount of time it takes to go to go grocery shopping. So is that something that could be done? For example, can someone else potentially in our household be doing it is it really necessary that you are the one doing it? Or can you add it in with something else? So right now, are you going out on the weekend and breaking up the middle of your day when you could be enjoying a creative pursuit right then and maybe instead you can take that grocery shopping errand and you could love it in on your way home from work if you work a nine to five job so really looking at what are your different options here.
The next question that we have here when you're looking at is this actually requirement of me. This next question is, is this a hard boundary that I don't actually need to do at all? So an example of this is anything where you perhaps have agreed to something with your personal life you've told someone that you can, you know, take care of something for them, you can help them out with something, but you don't actually want to be doing it and you feel like you're being pressured into doing it. You're doing it because that's always been the way that it's been in this particular relationship that you have that type of thing. So here's one of those things where you want to look at, maybe I don't need to be doing this. Maybe this is a new boundary that I need to set or if I've already set this boundary with these people, maybe it's time for me to actually hold that boundary and maintain it. And so in that case, if it is sort of hard boundary that you need to either set or else maintain, then you might also need to look at is this a communication issue where other people are not realizing that I'm setting this boundary? I'm setting that internally and I haven't expressed it or is a respect issue where they know about this boundary, they continue to violate it. It's they're being disrespectful of me, right? Those types of pieces. So you really want to be looking at all of these different types of things. And you can see that if you were asking yourself these types of questions, what ends up happening is you might discover that a lot of the life is leaving things cropping up for you right now might actually not be things that need to be getting in your way. Now, as you can imagine, there can be a lot of stuff to unpack with all of this. If you're starting to go through this and you realize that you know, these are boundaries that you need to set or communication issues or there's a lot of mindset work that you need to do around allowing yourself to let go of certain things are giving yourself permission to let go of certain things. In that case, I would recommend booking a coaching session, we can do that Sagan morrow.com/coaching, that link will be in the show notes. So if you want help with any of this type of thing, we can work through all the mindset around that we can figure out a good strategy for you and your unique situation. You are not alone. So that was the second sort of keys here. That's the second step of how to kind of navigate everything and ensure that you are able to make good progress on your creative pursuits or your business, whatever they happen to be even when they first came. Our third and final step here is to add an offer time always, always add even more time than you might think. If you're the type of person who is consistently miscalculating how long something is going to take or you have a habit of either missing deadlines or else you do make deadlines but you're always you know, ended up going way overboard with needing to pack in a lot of work right before a deadline, then that might indicate that buffer time is something that you really need to work on. And again, that doesn't It doesn't matter if that's in your personal life or professional life. If that sort of happens for you a lot to them overtime is a really good idea. I would recommend that if it tends to be an issue for you where you do often you're cutting it really really close or you're missing deadlines or completely miscalculated how long something's gonna take. In that case, I would recommend going with how long you think you normally would think something takes and then giving yourself at least twice as long if not three times as long just automatically assume that what this does is it helps you to be able to actually do things within a timely fashion and and stick to the timelines that you want to be working on. But it also ensures that if life does life, if life is leaving, if life crops up, something comes up out of the blue that you need to deal with it's not going to derail your plans completely. Because you've already built in this concept of I have more than enough time to be able to work on my creative pursuit or work on my business or whatever it may be. In this case, you get to choose whether or not your life is precedent over your business or your creative pursuits. When you have that buffer. Time built in, then you can actually make a decision about how you want to proceed. Do you want in that case to prioritize your life? Or when you see something comes up when something in life happens? And you see that you do have time with your creative pursuits. You can reorganize things, you can still take that step back and really look at okay but do I still want to derail my plans? Do I want to prioritize life over this creative pursuit? In this particular instance? It's always going to change Absolutely, depending on this particular scenario, the circumstance whatever life is it happens to be life life and all of that kind of stuff is always going to be very it's a very personal decision. And it's going to change considerably from one situation to the next. But the point here is that you will have more of an opportunity to make that decision. You have more of that choice, rather than feeling like you're being forced into making a choice or that choice has been thrust upon you. And I also want to note here that when we are looking at things like adding in buffer time to your schedule, energy management is also going to be pivotal. So energy management is all about ensuring that you are making the best possible use of your energy levels, your creativity levels, so that at the end of the day, the end of the week, whatever it might happen to be, you aren't just exhausted all the time and so that you are not burning yourself out, you're not burning the candle at both ends or anything like that. So you actually have the energy to do the things that you want to do and to do the things that come up in life. So you can have that really lovely balance and you can get to do it all. So those are our three steps for kind of how to do this. And you know, in my own example here, I had initially planned this month to spend a week working on my next novel, and I was really excited about it. I had blocked it off my schedule all the things and then my my mother decided to come out and visit us for that exact week. And that makes me so so happy because I love it when she comes to visit. I really miss my family. And so the hardest part about living multiple provinces away from family is that I don't get to see them all the time. So I'm so excited that she's coming to visit. And also I know that I will not get any book writing done while she's here. She's often you know wanting to do a lot of different things. She's a very action oriented kind of person. So I know that I will not have the the brain space and the the time to focus on any book writing and that's okay. That is more than okay, so in this instance, I am happily allowing life to life and you know, derail those little creative plans. And also, I was thinking about this and I'm thinking how these types of things happen so often as with my clients coming to me and telling me that you know, this, this was happening for her and how can she find more time for her business, not kind of thing. And I realized that I need to really, you know, follow this three step process that I just mentioned, but much farther in advance. So what I actually did just earlier today is I had my annual business planning retreat for my business, I do a little business planning retreat every year. And with this particular retreat, I have mapped out every single day of 2024 and exactly what I'm going to be working on every single day, all year long. With awkward Hangleton Of course, and also I started this entire process of planning for 24 by blocking off those days, those weeks when I suspect things might be happening. So I know that my mom comes to visit really about once a quarter I would say maybe a little bit less because I think it's about once a quarter that she comes to campus to visitors. And so if I know that, even if I know if I don't know exactly when she will be coming at this particular point, and she might, you know, message me a couple weeks before or a month before and say hey, I'm having I'm planning on doing this week. Does that work for you? If I already know that she comes out about once a quarter then I can block off an entire week once a quarter where I am assuming that she's coming to visit and then I can move that week around depending on when she actually comes to visit. So that was one of the things I did earlier today as part of this business retreat. And then I mapped out okay here is when I'm going to work on my novels and actually do book writing. And so what I've actually planned out in 2024 is you know different days and certain weeks when I will be working on my novels. But I've also decided that I want to participate at least to some degree in all of the NaNoWriMo. So National Novel Writing Month is every November, but there's also a Camp NaNoWriMo that happens. I think it's I want to say April in July. And so I've actually blocked off all three of those months where I really want to do a lot more book writing much more intensively during those particular months. I don't know that I'm necessarily going to do the full, you know, 50,000 words next November, but that's not really the point of it. It's just about ensuring that I am writing on these particular days and he's particular weeks and basically every day in certain months. So I have not given myself a specific workout or a particular expectation for any of these days that I have blocked off in playing 24. It's much more about these are the writing days that I have set aside and it is writing for the pure enjoyment of writing and for the purpose of making progress on a novel rather than hitting particular word count. This does not mean that I will be neglecting word counts altogether. So I will likely they'll likely get a few days before you know each particular book reading days or book reading weeks that I will map out expectations for myself of you know what I want to accomplish that particular week or that day. I'll map that out a little bit beforehand, maybe just a few days before, but what I'm really focused on in 2024 is connecting back with what I love about writing and with making progress with finishing my novels. Rather than sticking to a rigid structure. We're focusing on an end goal of publishing the book. The journey is the theme. The journey is the thing. And I think that by not setting more talents and that type of thing at this particular stage, it's actually going to serve as that all important reminder for me, that the journey is the thing when those writing days do come around.
And as I mentioned, I really focus on connecting back with what I love about writing. So it's about the journey and making progress with finishing my novels. This is the really delicate balance. That is something that really fascinates me as an author but also as a business owner and you know also just going through life in general. This is a really important balance that I don't think we ever perfect, but there's always there's always some delicate maneuverings that we get to do with it in terms of really focusing on this is what I love doing and I just want to be doing this while also making progress on it and working towards what we can what we want the finished product to look like. So we want to have that balance of both. I love writing. And I also love getting my messages out into the world and I love being able to hold that finished book in my hands and I love it when I'm finished a novel then I'm working on the next novel. So it's all about ensuring that there is a balance of not just continually writing the exact same book for the next 50 years like I don't want to do that. I don't want to write just because I love writing. I want to write because I love writing. And because I want to write the books and finish them and share them with the world share stories with the world. So having that balance is is very important. And that as well is something that I love working with my clients on I think that there's so much so much stuff that can come out of habit is really, really fascinating because we all have different different perspectives on it and different reasonings behind why we might be more geared toward one end of the spectrum or the other. So some people are very much focused on I just want to be writing and I just want to keep on perfecting this versus other people might focus so much on the end goal of in this example, finishing books and publishing them that they aren't enjoying the actual journey the process of writing itself. So we want to be able to enjoy both parts and to have a good balance of them. And if you are struggling with that balance, we can absolutely again welcome coaching call Sagan morrow.com/coaching. I would be happy to help you with whatever it might be in your own life or business that you might be working through. Again, we can do all kinds of fun fun stuff around your mindset and everything like that. So please do feel free to book a coaching call with me. I'd love to help you out with that. Okay, there we have it. So those are some thoughts on how to navigate your creative pursuits or your business when life is leaving. If you have additional questions about this topic, or any other topic that you'd like me to address here on the on the other weekly podcast, I would love to hear it. Please submit your topic ideas at Sagan morrow.com/question That my friend is a wrap for today's episode of indie author weekly access the show notes for this episode at Sagan morrow.com/podcast and share your thoughts about it on Twitter or Instagram. My handle is at Sagan lives. Please take two minutes to rate and review the other weekly on Apple podcasts. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I will see you next week for another episode of indie author weekly

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