Using Time Wisely

Use Time Wisely. These were three words that I became familiar with early on in life. Every six weeks or so, I’d see those words and looking out to the right of them, I usually found a check mark. The dreaded report card! The check mark, of course, meant that I needed to improve in that area. 

If only that little mark meant that I had mastered using my time wisely for that six week. It never made sense to me. And, in the interest of complete transparency, I was also familiar with the words, Pays attention in class. I imagine my teachers would say that I was daydreaming. I excelled in those areas.

I would like to think that I have gotten better at these things over the years. There are still those occasions though when it would appear that I have lapsed back into adolescent habits. I am still prone to dream; always have been and always will be.

But of late my quest for the simplistic life has been fraught with pitfalls. I seem to stay either too busy or too tired to do much in the area of creativity. The desire is there. The ideas are there. What is missing is the time and the wherewithal to get down to the business of drawing, creating something in the garage (though I like to think of it as a multi-purpose studio), taking and working on photographs, and yes, writing. I think about it. I think about it a lot. I just haven’t taken many of the “next steps” needed to turn my thinking into action.

Then I began to think about it. What if I outlined a schedule for my evenings? I have a good idea on what things I want to do. I have sift through the many things I could do and narrowed them down to the things I wish to do; those things being draw, create art with my photography and write. Oh, and still find time to read every night. So armed with this desire and knowing my goals I have outlined the next nine weeks of Monday through Fridays. Sprinkle a few hours in class on Mondays and in choir rehearsals on Wednesdays, and I think I may have something that works.

The challenge now is to make it work. Keep the focus narrow. Work through these nine weeks. Then, we’ll look at the next nine weeks.

Nine weeks? That is the number of weeks I’ll be in class. Just in case you wondered.

Use time wisely. I remember, though I can’t count, the times that I had to apologize for that being checked on my report cards. And I suppose that these for paragraphs are my apology for not being more faithful in writing here. Honestly, sometimes I just don’t know what to write. I don’t feel inspired or creative. But other times I simply don’t make the time to set down and work at it.

Maybe I would do well to remember something my dad told me years ago. I can’t recall his exact words, but they could be summed in this. He said, “Writing is a discipline and you have to be disciplined. Make time to write and when that time comes, you set down to write. You may not have anything to write, but you set down in front of your typewriter anyway and stare at the blank sheet of paper.”

So on we go. Bring on the blank sheets of paper; or in keeping with the times, a blank Pages document.