Hope Writes

Time Is…Money?

Posted by Hope

“There’s a myth that time is money. In fact, time is more precious than money. It’s a nonrenewable resource. Once you’ve spent it, and if you’ve spent it badly, it’s gone forever.”
- Neil Fiore

I’ll bet you’ve heard it said as much as I have, “Time is money. Stop wasting time!” When I read this quote, I sat at my desk mulling it over for a few minutes. Nobody’s ever told me that time is more precious than money. Okay, so it’s one of those things I should know, but just never took the time to think about. So this quote was a nice little wake-up call for me.

How do you spend your time every day? Do you plan ahead and stick to the plan for the most part? Do you plan, then play? Do you not plan at all?

Time really is our most valuable resource. And once it’s gone, that’s it. There’s no getting it back. Ever. Are you a good steward of your time?

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How Well Do You Manage Your Time?

Posted by Hope

I’ve been staring an ugly monster in its third eye for a few weeks now. That ugly monster’s name is TIME.

I’ve increasingly grown more and more busy in my business, adding new clients, weeding out others, and taking on additional writing jobs here and there. At first it wasn’t anything unusual. But now, the busier I get, the more I realize that I’m working way too much and not spending enough time with my family.

I’m working on a time mangement plan for myself. In this plan, I highlight every single thing I do: writing for clients, blogging, updating websites, building websites, writing for myself, etc. After I listed everything I do for my writing business, I listed everything important regarding my family and spiritual life. I have to tell you, it’s a pretty long list!

At first, I was a little overwhelmed by the immensity of my lists. But then when I took a good, hard look at them, I immediately saw:

• Things that are eating huge chunks of my time every day
• Things that are essential to the livelihood of my writing business
• Things that totally need to be cut away from my lists

It only took me a few minutes to create those lists. Then just a few more minute to determine those three things. Now I feel like I have a good starting point from which to build a better planned, more productive day.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is changing my working hours. I’ve always worked during the day (all day, all evening). But as I’ve said, this is leading to longer hours and me neglecting my family more. I’ve been tracking time and watching for my “3 magic hours.”

I’ve always been a morning person…until recently. In fact, I once enjoyed waking up at 3 AM, just so I could get up and write while the house was quiet. Well, that ended years ago after the birth of my son, which is one reason why I think I’m not nearly as productive any longer.

I have noticed that the quietest time will be after kids are in bed, from 9-midnight. So I am considering changing my working hours, to push out work during these three magic hours. I’m going to give it a try, starting in a couple of days and see what happens. If I can push more out in those 3 hours alone, then there’s no sense in me sitting at my desk all day and evening, while trying to work through endless distractions and interuptions.

How well do you manage your time? What are some of your time management tips?

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The Time Thief

Posted by Hope

Do you procrastinate? Maybe my question should be how often do you procrastinate?

Procrastination is a huge time thief for many writers. It’s a thief for people in general. It’s interesting to me that I know what I’m doing when I procrastinate. Yet, sometimes it’s easier for me to stop myself from doing it than at other times.

If you find yourself procrastinating too much, ask yourself why this is happening. Do those tasks really mean something to you? Are they really important?

I’ve been procrastinating myself lately. I’ve had several ideas for personal projects that I’ve wanted to do. But I’ve been putting it off, giving myself all sorts of excuses like I don’t have time, or maybe that idea isn’t good enough.

I printed out quite a bit of stuff yesterday to read offline. One of these was a PDF file that Tiffany Dow provided to everyone on her Ebook Empire ning group, which I found very motivational. She basically said that you have to stop believing that the market is saturated and just get off your sorry butt and DO IT!

Of course there is an endless stream of information online. It’s the Internet! But that doesn’t mean that I can’t bring a different perspective to the mix. I get so hung up sometimes on the fact that I’m a little guppie swimming in a see of dolphins that I forget to see my own self-worth.

I think I got sidetracked here…..

What I’m trying to say is that if you aren’t careful, it’s so easy to allow all these “excuses” to lead you to procrastinate. And then before you know it, all your time has expired and you’re still sitting in the shadows watching everyone else pass you by. Don’t let procrastination steal your time anymore! Be proactive in your own life. What do you want to do? DO IT!

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Too many plans

Posted by Hope

I’m catching up on blog reading this morning and was pleasantly surprised when I read this post about Bob Bly’s dirty little secret. His secret, of course, is that he’s never had a business plan. Wow.

A while back I entertained discussion among a group of writers about creating a writing plan for our writing business. I did write out a simple plan–monetary goals, personal goals, etc. But to be honest with you, I saved the file and never opened it again. I forgot all about it.

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