Getting Back Into The Zone - For Real This Time!
Things have not exactly been going to plan around here lately, I just seem to be going round in circles. I plan to work on some sites and have every intention of knuckling down with them, but then something comes up which severely limits my spare time and I just don’t get round to doing it. This has been going on for the last 6 weeks or so.
I have a fairly decent sized list of sites/projects that I would like to get into some kind of “live” state in the near future, and hopefully this time I can really get stuck into them. Part of that is also to be more active on this blog.
Making Time
This is the major stumbling block for me. Time. I’m not trying to make any excuses because I know there are people out there who are working a crazy number of hours to get their online empire off the ground, but I do find that time to spend on my online projects is just so hard to find.
I work full time, Monday to Friday, and I “enjoy” a 2 hour commute (each way), so that’s 12 hours out of my day. I also have a wonderful wife and three great kids who obviously want to spend time with me in the evenings and at the weekends, and I want to spend time with them too. That usually leaves me with some free time from about 10-11pm, and since I have to get up at 5am to start it all again, I’m usually a tad knackered by that point and can’t get my head around anything.
So, the plan…
Well since I moved house and acquired an extra hour (each way) commute I thought it would be a good idea to get myself a laptop so I could work during the 1 hour+ train journey. I was after an Acer Aspire One, but instead have managed to get my hands on a Lenovo X61 from work. Lovely. So this is a good start, giving me roughly 10 hours a week. That’s not bad.
I’m going to also try and actually take a lunch break every day (gasp!) and also use this time for online work. If that goes to plan, it’s another 4 hours (I play footie on Friday lunchtimes).
At weekends I’m going to try and set aside a couple of hours for me to lock myself away from distractions and get some work done then too.
All in all I’d like to be able to find at least 15 hours a week. I think in that time I could definitely get into the swing of things and start seeing some positive results, seeing as I’m barely spending an hour or two a week at the moment.
Getting Organised
This is another thing I need to work on. At the moment what I tend to do when I do get the odd hour is to work on whatever comes to mind at that moment. This usually means that each of my projects never gets a chance to gain momentum as it’s only getting the odd bit of attention here and there. I’m also terrible at keeping to-do lists, so never really have any good indicators of how that particular project is progressing.
I’ve now started a to-do list for each of my projects, along with some basic goals for them. As I complete each item on the list I’m hoping the sense of having achieved something will spur me on to keep it up.
I’ve also started to prioritise my list of projects, so I can see easily which ones I want to get rolling first and can then dedicate more time to those.
I was considering allocating specific blocks of time to specific projects as well, but I’m not sure how well that would work (do you do this? Any comments welcome).
So there you have it, this is my plan for helping me get back on track and start to get things done and hopefully see some results.
How do you make time to do your online work? Care to share any tips for freeing up those extra hours or organising your workload?
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September 18th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I’m quite like you with juggling time. I’ve got a full-time day job, a family and about an hour or two in the evening where I “might” have free time. It’s hard to stay focused when you’ve only got an hour or two to fit it all in.
What has really helped me is a notebook… just to keep track of everything I’d like to eventually get done
I’m hoping to one day get through a list or two that I’ve come up with.
If you do get a laptop that would definitely help along with making time to do it. I’ve heard it’s all about how badly you want it - but sometimes life gets in the way.
You’ll find balance… it just takes a bit of time
September 19th, 2008 at 6:34 am
Hey Empress! Thanks for the comments.
I’ve actually tried paper notebooks before but I’m terrible with keeping them in good condition, they tend to get lost, torn up and just generally battered. I think I’m more suited to keeping my notes on a PC (currently jotting them down in Windows Notepad).
You’ll notice that I haven’t actually included any time in the evenings in my plan, although if I found I had a spare hour or so I’d definitely take the opportunity, but usually by the time I do I’m so tired that I end up sitting there for 10 mins staring at the screen in a zombie-like state! Not the most efficient use of time!
I guess it does come down to how badly you want it, I just don’t want it to be at the expense of my family time really.