Align Your Priorities for Creative Output

Life is full of demands. Life is full of obligations. Life is full of temptations. Life is often too full of things that each of us wishes to do, and the time during the day is too short to get it all done. The speed of modern life doesn’t help, and it is all too easy to find oneself caught up in the cacophony of urban activity and feel completely drained every day.

This is the reality of limited time and unlimited wants. When it comes to figuring out how all of it goes together, I have found that priorities are essential, not just to determine a schedule for yourself, but also to make sure what you are doing in your life is what you actually want to be doing.

To that end, before you can decide anything, you have to decide what your priorities actually are, rather than what you wish for them to be. This is a matter of self-knowledge, not of willpower. It is coming to grips with who you are, not doing algebra with your time. That comes later.

It is not useful to do the thought experiment, “What would I do all day if I didn’t have to worry about money?” Everything you do in life asks something from you; there is no pure, easy joy that doesn’t have some amount of investment attached to it. Family is a joyful experience but comes at a cost to your time, energy, focus, and bank account. Bodybuilding occurs only though subjecting yourself pain – literally. Having money to spend is quite nice, but that comes only after you have done the work to acquire it, which can require not only long hours but years of thankless, unprofitable effort.

And yes, creative productivity is hard, hard work with the satisfaction of completion coming only after you have done the work to achieve it. So it is with money. Yes, money is not everything and you may do a job for reasons besides money, but you should avoid the tempting fantasy of a job being both maximally profitable and maximally enjoyable in the moment.

You aren’t going to love every moment in any business. Accept that, and go into any endeavor with your eyes open.

More tomorrow!

I actually do love writing. Check out my latest horror book, Eyes in the Walls, which readers are really enjoying: