Carving Out Time For Me

Lately I’ve been surrounded with several motivating resources: my husband, friends, family, the blogs I follow and the book I’m reading, The Best Yes by Lysa TerKeurst. One thing these people have all been encouraging me to pursue is my passion for writing. These are people who have seen some of my best pieces and still continue to believe in my abilities. However, I know that my writing is more than my ability it is God’s gift. When I write he is there with me giving me the words. He’s behind every idea and word that goes from my mind to my fingers to your screen.

Since I was eighteen I have had the dream of one day publishing a novel. I’ve let year after year slip by without making progress toward that goal. The years wrap up and I think to myself, “Next year I’ll make it happen” only to make no more progress than before. I’ve even gotten to points in my life where I get so busy that I don’t even write at all.

But this year has been different. So far in 2015 I have written six chapters of a novel. I’ve taken time to blog daily to practice my skills and then set aside longer duration and intentional time to work on my novel. I read a chapter yesterday in The Best Yes entitled, “Overwhelmed Schedule Underwhelmed Soul.” In this chapter the author talks about how we all have a calling that we are neglecting. For me, it has been writing. In order to achieve that calling we have to be intentional with our time. That means saying “no” to activities that are not absolutely necessary in your life in order to have time remaining each week to carve out for yourself. This should be intentional time spent pursuing your calling.

Yesterday I carved out time for myself. I woke up before my husband and daughter and ventured out to a local coffee shop for two hours. I sat at a table in the coffee shop and I worked on my novel for that entire time. In two hours I produced ten pages to finish up my sixth chapter. I felt so accomplished. That amount of writing could have taken me months according to my old writing plan. I also felt energized all day because I began my day by doing something I had neglected for so long.

So I’ve decided to make this a weekly thing. I’ve taken my planner and blocked out two hours a week for me to escape to a coffee shop and just write. My husband has agreed to allow for this time and so it’s set in stone.

My husband has been reading The Best Yes as well. We’ve had a discussion as a family about not adding things to our schedule just because we don’t want to say “no”. We set our priorities with family and ministry. Things have been extremely busy and so as we usher in a new school year we have both committed to saying “no” to things that do not directly correlate with those priorities. If it is not something that will help us grow as a family or related to our areas of ministry then we have resolved to leave it off our schedule.

I know that those priorities will still keep us busy, but I’m hoping this new school year will at least be more focused than my schedule has been in the past. I’m really looking forward to my weekly coffee shop trips and for making progress on writing.

What are you neglecting that you should be carving time out for?