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Abstract

gs Up. No matter what, there’ll always be a need for dinner and food shopping and meal planning, and if I don’t remember to get my husband’s socks and undies in the washer, he’ll be nude! (Well, nude-ish.)But I’m working on several novels and novellas, and every single day, instead of having time to work on those, the small, daily tasks fill the time I should be spending on actual work. Instead of sitting here at the computer, working on the novella I’m halfway done with, I spend half the day as chauffeur for my kid. Instead of working on designing more art for posting on art sale sites, I get caught in endless housekeeping.My husband asks me when I’m going to publish the novels I’m working on, and I keep saying that I’m working on them, but I’m not — not enough. It’s time I started taking my writing — and my other artistic work — seriously.This comes down to a basic idea: my time and work have value. The only way to ensure that this value is recognized is for me to insist, now, that the tasks in my schedule are important and that the time I need to spend on my work is inviolable. When I’m working, I can’t be distracted or asked to do other things.(If I were at a job outside the house, this wouldn’t be a question, of course. Even retail work would be allowed to take my time without interruption.)I have to learn to be something I’ve never really been — unavailable.Not for always, not even for a whole day at a time, but for long enough for my work to get done. I’m not sure what this will look like, although I have some ideas.First, I’m going to have to get up earlier (I already know I’ll hate this for the first

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couple of weeks. UGH, mornings suck.).Second, my daily schedule will continue to include housekeeping; I don’t want to live in a messy, gross house filled with old dishes and bad food, and I like having clean clothes.Third, and possibly most importantly, I’ll be blocking out time every single day to spend on my actual work projects. That time will be marked on my schedule as UNAVAILABLE, at work.This will mean I won’t just drop anything I’m doing to do something that my family wants. They’ll have to see if I’ve got time in my schedule for the extra things and errands and so on. I have to insist that my time, work, and jobs have as much value as anything that they do/need/want.I could be earning money from my writing, if I just got it finished and published. I could be earning money from stickers and other things with my art, if I just got them finished and posted. I could post here every day, the way I keep saying I want to do.All of these things need me to have uninterrupted time to work on them, and it’s time I started making sure that I have it.My time has historically been universally available, and this needs to stop. My work is just as important as everyone else’s.I’m a Californian who’s now living in New Hampshire and learning all about these weird things called seasons. Snow is weird, yo. I’m an author, a chicken owner, a string mage, a parent, a biochemist, and I drive a stick shift.<a href="https://mailchi.mp/5b32083aa466/email-sign-up">Sign up for my email list!</a> Weekly emails, with funny links, more stories, and pictures of cats and chickens!</article></body>

On Learning How To Be Unavailable

I can’t seem to stick to a schedule. Part of this, I admit, is my own fault; I’m distractable and can easily get side-tracked. Also, I’ve got a lot of things which need to get done and sometimes I get overwhelmed and just do the thing that’s in front of me, even if it’s not the thing I planned to do.

But at least half the time, it’s because my schedule is connected to the lives of my family members. Yesterday, I had a lot of plans — I wrote them out and was ready to really get cracking on the work I’d scheduled… but then my kid said they needed to go out and get new undies and a few other things, so out we went.

We did get the drive cleared of leaves and pine needles and stuff — I made sure that got done before we went out. But since that took a couple of hours, and then shopping for things took another couple of hours, there went the whole day, and only one thing from my list got done.

Ultimately, this is a big problem for me, as nothing I want to get done does.

Part of this is the fact that I run the household, so many of my tasks include many permanently unfinished things: The Laundry will never Be Done Forever, nor will The Dishes or Tidying Things Up. No matter what, there’ll always be a need for dinner and food shopping and meal planning, and if I don’t remember to get my husband’s socks and undies in the washer, he’ll be nude! (Well, nude-ish.)

But I’m working on several novels and novellas, and every single day, instead of having time to work on those, the small, daily tasks fill the time I should be spending on actual work. Instead of sitting here at the computer, working on the novella I’m halfway done with, I spend half the day as chauffeur for my kid. Instead of working on designing more art for posting on art sale sites, I get caught in endless housekeeping.

My husband asks me when I’m going to publish the novels I’m working on, and I keep saying that I’m working on them, but I’m not — not enough. It’s time I started taking my writing — and my other artistic work — seriously.

This comes down to a basic idea: my time and work have value. The only way to ensure that this value is recognized is for me to insist, now, that the tasks in my schedule are important and that the time I need to spend on my work is inviolable. When I’m working, I can’t be distracted or asked to do other things.

(If I were at a job outside the house, this wouldn’t be a question, of course. Even retail work would be allowed to take my time without interruption.)

I have to learn to be something I’ve never really been — unavailable.

Not for always, not even for a whole day at a time, but for long enough for my work to get done. I’m not sure what this will look like, although I have some ideas.

First, I’m going to have to get up earlier (I already know I’ll hate this for the first couple of weeks. UGH, mornings suck.).

Second, my daily schedule will continue to include housekeeping; I don’t want to live in a messy, gross house filled with old dishes and bad food, and I like having clean clothes.

Third, and possibly most importantly, I’ll be blocking out time every single day to spend on my actual work projects. That time will be marked on my schedule as UNAVAILABLE, at work.

This will mean I won’t just drop anything I’m doing to do something that my family wants. They’ll have to see if I’ve got time in my schedule for the extra things and errands and so on. I have to insist that my time, work, and jobs have as much value as anything that they do/need/want.

I could be earning money from my writing, if I just got it finished and published. I could be earning money from stickers and other things with my art, if I just got them finished and posted. I could post here every day, the way I keep saying I want to do.

All of these things need me to have uninterrupted time to work on them, and it’s time I started making sure that I have it.

My time has historically been universally available, and this needs to stop. My work is just as important as everyone else’s.

I’m a Californian who’s now living in New Hampshire and learning all about these weird things called seasons. Snow is weird, yo. I’m an author, a chicken owner, a string mage, a parent, a biochemist, and I drive a stick shift.