Carrie Baker – The Growth Collective

If I had a fiver for every time I ever said “I wish I had more time”, I could retire and have all the time I needed! I have my day job (which you can read about here), I keep my household fed, clothed, the home clean, I try my best to keep plants alive, and I have people in my life I want to spend time with.

Around all of these things I try really hard to make time for my writing and creating.

If you were to look at all the ways you spend your time, your commitments, relationships, your down time, it can seem that there isn’t a lot of time left for the things that are important to you like your goals, things that bring you joy or that dream you have.

I am going to confess something:

As much as I go on about needing more time for my writing, I am also the worst waster of my own time…. Phew! There, I said it!

I am great at suddenly needing to clear my workspace, clean the house, or water my plants. Mostly it’s falling down the rabbit hole of interesting reels on social media of people discovering weird stuff in old or abandoned houses, to people finding things in the sea while diving just to name a few.

Yes, cleaning my home is a good thing. And watching interesting reels feeds my creative imagination, while there is a small place for this kind of down time, it does mean that I am not using precious writing time either.

Be Intentional.

One thing that as changed in the last couple of years, as writing has become an important part of my life, is that I had to decide to be intentional with my time.

As a creative person, I tend to be messy and disorganised. I was especially like this when I was younger. But having all the responsibilities I mentioned earlier, meant the need to change my ways.

These changes, though I have fought against them at times, have greatly benefited me in so many ways. One of the benefits is that being more organised, has enabled me to carve out that precious time for myself.

If you are in a season where those important goals or dreams need more time, then I can help you!

Reevaluate Your Schedule.

Get something to write on, and write down your schedule for a usual week. Make note of where and how you spend your time each day.

There will be things that have to happen at specific times that are set in stone, underline the commitments that have to stay as they are.

If you look closely, can you see those pockets of time beginning to appear?

Look again and see if there are things you have in your schedule you can shift or move around a little, to make some bigger pockets of time.

Now write up a fresh weekly schedule to see how you could potentially create some time for your goals or dreams. How does it look? Does it seem workable?

For some people, especially parents of young children, these pockets of time may be as long as fifteen minutes, and that is ok! Any time you can carve out for you, is valuable!

Remember to leave space for down time too, as it’s important to take time to unwind and rest.

Give Yourself Time.

I can hear you saying, “But I don’t have any time!” There are a number of ways you can give yourself time:

Get up early.

You could get up a little earlier to get some time in, before your household, or before you can distract yourself with other things, like your phone. There is a golden window first thing after waking up where your brain works brilliantly. If you can get straight to doing your thing (ok, maybe caffeine first), is where you will work best.

A year or so ago, I decided to get up earlier, to give myself more time in the morning to do my daily posts (you can find those here) and so that I wasn’t beginning my day in a manic rush. It has meant that I mostly start my days well, I say mostly because I have kids…

A little help.

Are there others in your home who could help around the house a little more? Would you consider doing your grocery shopping online? Or are you in a position to outsource some of those tasks and pay someone to do them?

Another way is to plan your meals ahead of time, so you know what you are eating when and buy your weekly shopping accordingly. It takes away the time you spend deciding between this or that at the end of every day. You can also cook a double portion, so you can free up another evening from having to cook. If you do this often enough, you’d spend a lot less time in the kitchen each week.

Do you commute? Instead of scrolling the socials or listening to music, perhaps you could be working on your thing.

Could your work hours be a little more flexible? You could work a little more here, to give yourself a bigger pocket of your own time there? You can ask your line manager/overlord and see what happens.

Hour Of Power

My Clever-Writer-Friend has recently started setting a timer for two hours of focussed work time. She has found that by doing this solid chunk of time, that she gets all her freelance work for the day, finished in those two hours. This has revolutionised her life and has given her more time for other things that she wants to do, like drinking more coffee, exercise and working on her own stuff.

I’ve started doing this at work on my admin days, first thing when I get into the office. A solid hour or two before people start wandering into my office to distract me – I mean… talk to me.

I don’t get all my day’s work done, but I can make a solid dent in it.

Here’s how you do it; silence your devices as much as you can, close the door, or put headphones if you’re able to. If you share a workspace with others, let your colleagues know you are having focussed work time, so they know to leave you along for a while. These things help to lessen all the distractions.

Plan what you’re going to work on, then set a timer for your decided length of time, and go for it!

(This can be translated across to housework too – set a timer, put on some good music and speed through those chores and see how much you can get done!)

Inhale To Exhale.

One thing I know about making this time for my own writing and creating, is that it has a positive impact on everything else I do.

I parent better, I ‘wife’ better, I work better, I keep up with the housework better, everything is better. When I make time for my goals and my dream, I have more to give because this time ‘fills my bucket’.

I had a long walk with a friend recently, she had so much gold to say. One of the things that resonated with me, was this; ‘You need to inhale, before you can exhale.’ We spoke about inhaling as spending time doing those things that fill your heart, on the goals and dreams you long to achieve. And exhaling is all the other things and people you pour yourself into.

When we inhale first, there is breath to give into everything else.

This thing you need to give yourself time for, may be night school to get some qualifications, achieving that fitness goal, learning a new skill, creating art, writing a book, doing something for the pure joy of it, or so many other things. If it’s important to you, it is worthy of the time you need to give it.

Go and have those conversations where you need to, and see where you can carve out that time. Think of it like your ‘other work hours’ in its importance, and fiercely protect that time you have given yourself.

What is one way you are going to do to give yourself more time this week? I’d love to hear from you and find out what spoke to you in this blog post. Drop me a line here in my email, or leave a comment below and let me know – I’ll be right on the other end to reply!

If you want to really encourage me, one of my love languages is coffee! You can Buy Me A Coffee Here!

If you found this helpful or know of someone you think needs to read this post, go and share it with them or on your socials! Why not give me a follow too? Thanks for taking some time with me!

Sending you love friend,

Carrie xxx

Photo credit :: Rachael Crowe / Unsplash