task triaging: writing vs TV

A reader on Twitter asked about writing:

“How do you make sure you prioritize the most important things in your life without getting caught up in ‘busy’ work?”

It’s funny timing because I wrote only a 1,000 words yesterday for various reasons.  Sometimes other stuff just takes priority.

That said, it’s a matter of triaging. I’ve heard it said that the definition of adulthood is trying to balance all of one’s responsibilities without shortchanging any of them too badly, and the older I get, the truer that seems.

Some days I have more time to write, and other days I don’t.

Like, one day this past week, I wrote 10,000 words of DRAGONTIARNA: CROWNS. Another day, I did 7,000. Another day, I only did 100. That’s all right. Some days I had more stuff to do than others, and 100 words is still better than zero. Never let the perfect be the enemy of the possible.

Don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t get a task done on a particular day, or that you didn’t get as much done as you wanted. Doing something is always better than doing nothing, even if it’s not as much as you hoped.

I should mention that one thing that frees up a lot of time is that I very rarely watch television and/or streaming media. Like, I’ll often have the TV on the background while I write or do other things, but it’s almost always something I’ve seen before and it’s there for background noise. Watching a new show (like, actually paying attention to it) is such a huge time commitment that I’ll do it only infrequently. Besides, I usually find books or video games more engaging for leisure anyway.

-JM