Thieving Time

I need to start stealing my time back.

I am having a conversation with  An Drumair about how I am spending my time and how I make progress towards what I want to do rather than continuing to wallow in what I am doing.  As I lamented the fact of how I spend my time at work he asked me the question I probably should have been asking myself:  "Can you integrate your passion - your writing - into what you are currently doing?"

(Behold the brilliance of the question, by the by:  not "What can you do to change where you are?" but "What can you do to integrate what you want to do into what you have to do now?"

I started to ponder after reading it.  What could I do to integrate my passion into what I am doing now?  On the one hand, not a great deal - my writing and my real work life are about as far as apart as two activities could be.  But on the other hand....

Time.  It comes down to time (well, really, time and commitment, as An Drumair so correctly pointed out).  The commitment, of course, comes from using the time.  The trick is finding the time.

So let's ask a different question:  If I have spend a certain amount of my day currently doing something I'm not crazy about and if I want to move towards doing something I am crazy about and I need the time to do it, where do I find that time?

By thieving it.

No, not by showing up at work and not working, that's not the point.  It's finding a way to take part of the time I otherwise spend uselessly and converting it into time which is useful to what I want to do.  This is partially accomplished by 1) working harder when I am there and 2) not dedicating additional hours beyond those I am required to give.  Fair enough - that adds 30 minutes or so to my day.

What else?

The what else came in two forms:  how are you spending your lunches and how are you spending your time driving?

Lunches?  Sure.  I eat lunch more with my coworkers than I have in 14 years - but is that as critical as achieving what I want to achieve?  If I could even find 15 minutes a day to write, that's an article or part of a chapter or something else for me to read and ponder for my writing.

And driving?  That's 70 to 80 minutes a day that is available for some kind of use, if I can only figure out how to apply it.  Surely I can speak and eventually convert something into writing.

A very wise man, An Drumair.  Adapt to where you are with what you have in pursuit of what you want.