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The Myth of Time: Improve Your Life One Deadline at a Time
By Sandra Lee Schubert | March 4, 2008
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
~ Douglas Noel Adams, English humorist and science fiction novelist
Before writing I had to find the right music to play. There were the writing books to look through. After all, the experts have all done it before me so I can learn from them. I needed water, chocolate, my hair had to be pinned off my face. I checked outside to see if it was raining. I positioned the fan just right. I have a deadline to keep. I am like a runner before a race, pacing nervously, stretching drinking water, getting ready for the starting shot to set me off to the finish line. Let me tell you right off that I hate deadlines. They make me itch, I get cranky and all my bad behavior and methods of procrastination begin to over take me. I whine. “I am artist I can’t create by schedule”! It is awful.
Along the way I picked up some real bad habits about doing things on time. Unlike the commercial that admonishes me to just do it I will do anything else. So if you tell me how difficult it is to get to your writing I will understand. I am right there with you in fact we should go get coffee and talk. We can get back to pen and paper later. Who am I kidding? Life is about meeting deadlines. Whether you like it or not, a deadline can improve your creativity.
“Goals are dreams with deadlines.” ~ Diana Scharf Hunt
I waste lots of time. There are ample opportunities to write. But I restrict myself to a time and a day. As if I could only create during a certain time period. Think of the ways you limit your writing time. According to Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone in their book, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude, “a motive is the ‘inner urge’ only within the individual which incites a person to action, such as an instinct, passion, emotion, habit, mood, impulse, desire or idea.” Think about what rules you have for creating. What is your motivation for writing? Do you have a desire to make money? Do you have a life story to tell? Or do you just like it?
“Keep your mind on the things you should and do want and off the things you shouldn’t and don’t want.”
~ Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone
A final thought on deadlines.
We live in a fast paced society where the rhythms of nature and life are trod upon all the time. Don’t use deadlines as another burden but rather a structure to free up more time for the important and fulfilling things in life. My friends can write books as well as take time to nurture themselves and their families. Managing their time allows them to fulfill their obligations as well as their passions. Take the opportunity to create structure into your creativity and see what you can produce.
“Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.”
~ Napoleon Hill
© 2008 Sandra Lee Schubert www.writing-for-life.com
Technorati Tags: How-to, Inspiration, Deadlines
Topics: Deadlines, How-To, Inspiration |