A few days ago I received notice that my book proposal is now undergoing editorial review. The editor said it would take some time to complete the process. Which is just fine with me.
This brings me to a point about using time wisely. We all are allotted a certain amount of time on earth. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know how much. Some get a lot more time than others. The trick is to put your priorities in order, and get them completed as quickly as possible.
And so certainly we all should do what we want to do, as quickly as possible. The problem is that many people don’t know what to do, how to do it, or when to do it.
If you’re not sure of your goals, your passions or what you want to do, I suggest developing a list and tacking it somewhere where you can see it everyday. There are people who have developed lists like “100 things I want to do before I’m gone for good.”
I would suggest, for most people, to do a list of maybe 20 or so. You want to be realistic and inspired, not discouraged.
If you can’t do the list for some reason, you need to ask yourself why.
In the past, also, I have suggested doing what is called a “lifeline”. What is that? What you do is go to a whiteboard or get a big, long piece of plain paper. Then you draw a line representing your life, from left to right. You draw high when a highlight happened in your life. Say, a baby is born, or you got married. You draw low when a low point happens, like you got a divorce, lost a job, or a death of a beloved person. Whatever. Make sure you put the dates underneath them.
This is also great for people near the end of their lives, and they can check to see what they haven’t done yet. There’s always a bit of time, I assure you, to do something.
When you finish your lifeline, you should sit and study it for a while. I am sure many personal observations will leap up at you.
This is also great for writers to do. It creates ideas, goals, inspiration, and creates more passion for the writing life. You can look back and see what you have done, what you haven’t done, and what you have planned for the future.
Another thing writers can do is to get out your lifetime body of work, and look at the dates they were printed. Analyze what you did, and why, and what you enjoyed writing. Not to mention what you didn’t like penning. Patterns should emerge from this.
I guess what I am saying is that you need to stop and take the time to analyze what happened in your life, and where you are going from here. You want to accomplish as much as you can, for the time you have left.
Life is wonderful and good.
Don’t waste a minute of it.
