On Prioritizing Your Time

Photo credit: becosky... on Flickr

Sometimes, life gets busy. There’s work, schoolwork, parenting work, house work, writing work, marketing work and life stuff, sometimes all rolled up into a week, or a day. And sometimes, finding the time to get that writing work done can be a massive struggle. 

It inevitably happens to all of us at some point or another. 

The key, I’ve found, to consistently keeping up with everything and finding time to write is to carefully prioritize your time. I tend to break things up by hard and soft deadlines. 

My hard deadlines are ones that I need to have done by a certain date. This is usually something that someone else is expecting, whether it’s school work, internship work, a revision, pre-scheduled blog posts/vlogs etc. These are deadlines that generally, I can’t move. If I miss them, there will likely be repercussions. 

Soft deadlines are ones I usually set myself. These are deadlines that I’d like to get done by a certain time, but if need be, I can move them. These are tasks I can put aside for a day or two without having to worry about it. 

Hard deadlines I try to get done first. Because I’m a person that likes to schedule my days, I usually have a to-do list of things that need to be done and things I’d like to get done. I often make sure to check off all the hard deadline items first before I worry about the soft deadlines. 

This is something I had to learn the hard way: the fact of the matter is, some days, writing can’t be a top priority. Some days there’s too much life stuff and work stuff and family stuff and health stuff and everything else to make much writing progress, and you know what? That’s okay. You don’t need to kill yourself to get your daily writing in and you don't need to write every single day to call yourself a writer (really). 

Because other days you will have the time, or some time at least, and those are the days where you can really capitalize on that time to get writing work done. You just have to make sure to get your butt in the chair and do it. 

Do you prioritize your time to try to get your writing work done? 

Twitter-sized bites: 

"The fact of the matter is, some days, writing can’t be a top priority." (Click to tweet)  

Writer @Ava_Jae shares some tips on prioritizing your time and fitting writing into your hectic schedule. (Click to tweet)