Like I Was Saying...
Matthew Dicks has a new book out: Someday Is Today.
Matthew Dicks first non-fiction book Storyworthy is a good read, especially if you're into storytelling.
I caught Matthew Dicks on the Art of Manliness Podcast with Brett McKay.
And one of the "creative rules" Matthew Dicks abides by is to Think of Your Life in minutes. The way Dicks explains it (mind you, I haven't read the book yet) is that typically people think in chunks of time. Fifteen minutes here, thirty minutes or an hour here.
What usually happens is that if you can't get something done in those chunks of time, you don't do it. So, for example, you know it'll take a good half hour to fold your laundry, but you can't squeeze in that half-hour, so your clothes stays a bundled mess.
I do this all the time. So it's like, "why bother" if I can't get this one task done.
Dicks says to change that thinking. Do a little bit of it at a time.
So you can't sit down for thirty minutes and write a five hundred-word blog post.
Fine.
Steal a couple of minutes throughout your day to write the post. Of course, you'll need to sacrifice those minutes you scroll on Twitter or Instagram.
I've tried to put this into practice these last couple of days. I am doing a little here and there.
Like the other day, I made it a point to sweep a little bit of our huge house. Usually, I'll wait till I have a good hour or so to sweep the house, but instead, I realized I had a few minutes, so instead of sitting in my chair and scrolling Instagram, I swept and felt better about things.
Now here's the big caveat.
What do you do with all this saved time?
Well, Someday is a book on creativity. So with the saved chunks of time, you devote to your creative endeavors.
I think this is one of the most important things about this exercise. Because if you don't commit this extra time to the things you want to do instead of what you have to do, you won't see the benefit of saving time.
So thinking and acting in your life in minutes won't yield the results you want, and you'll go back to thinking of your life in chunks.
Matthew had a few other suggestions, but I need to read the book to grasp them. However, I did download a sample of it on Kindle, and its good so far.
But I like this idea of stealing parts of your day back on menial tasks or using this for other creative endeavors is a radical way of looking at life.
Now Dicks says he can write four sentences in a couple of minutes. From the sounds of it, this practice has paid him dividends.
And sure, we can quibble about what a "good" sentence looks like. Still, Dicks has four sentences he can work with, which is more if than I have when looking for a chunk of time to write.