Create Time For What Is Necessary

The strawberries taste like strawberries. The snozberries taste like snozberries. Snozzberries? What the heck of a snozzberry? We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the laws.

This is the Music Makers podcast where I read things out loud to you and then offer my unqualified opinions on them. This post is called Create by Leo Babalta. Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears. Albert Camus.

It's amazing how many people I talk to who tell me they wanna create a new blog, write a book, start a business, change careers, make something new, but they keep putting it off. Does that sound familiar? You've been wanting to do something different, but you don't have the time or maybe the energy right now. A million things on your to do list, a schedule packed full, meetings that keep coming up. You'll get to your big thing, but later.

There's all the time in the world to do it later. Right? That time will never come, not if you don't create that time yourself. Seize the bull by the horns. Grasp it tenaciously.

Never let it go. Time has a habit of trampling over us so softly, we don't even notice it, but so powerfully, we become crushed over the course of weeks years. I had 2 jobs, 6 kids, and marathon training going on when I created Zen Habits. There was no time, but I put up a single blog post. The next day, I did 2 posts, even though I had no time.

That month, I did about 30 posts, not all are still online, despite there being no time. I had no time, so I created it. Time is often said to be our most limited resource, but it's not true. We can create time. It takes sheer force of will to do it, but it can be created.

Time doesn't fall into your lap. It isn't handed to you by a kindly old gentleman. You must create it. Taking from the world the raw materials you need and shaping it with your bare, dirty, blistered hands, pushing the clay into form from its shapeless, muddy glob. I had no time to create Zen Habit, and yet today it stands, alive and breathing with pattering heart.

I created the time, taking some from television watching, some from meetings, some from saying no to endless requests on my time by coworkers and well meaning friends, some from other important projects that I put off. I put off important things to create time for the most important thing. I said no to others I cared about to say yes to the thing I needed to make. Say no to everything else, put off what can be held at bay for the time being, and create time for what is necessary. You have the power to create time and the will to create.

Don't squander it, my friend. I used to be that person, the one who says, oh, yeah. I'm about to start something or always thought, 'Yeah. I've got this great idea and I'm going to start it soon.' Or, I'm going to start working out soon.' But somehow, it kept stretching before me, and I never actually started doing the things that I actually wanted to do. I had all these great ideas, but I wasn't actually executing or trying to do anything.

2 2 of my favorite things he says here in this article, There's all the time in the world to do it later. Right? That time will never come, not if you don't create that time yourself. And the other one is, time has a habit of trampling over us so softly we don't even notice it, but so powerfully we become crushed over the course of weeks years. That has definitely been true for me.

It's easy to give up a day. It's easy to give up an evening and say, no. I'm just not gonna do it tonight. Suddenly, that turns into months, turns into years, and you haven't done it. And you look at your project backlog and think, man, I'm not making any progress.

This podcast is one of the things that I decided finally, I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna start. And you know what? It didn't take up that much time. It definitely takes up time, but I still have a full time job and friends and family, and I've just found that I have to maybe not watch as much Veep or not spend so much time trolling Twitter.

It's amazing how much time you can actually have if you start looking for it. And this thing that we're talking about that you can't find the time to do. It doesn't have to be a start up. It doesn't have to be a blog. It doesn't have to be something super technical or some way you're trying to make money.

It could be it could be finally building that deck or or buying that classic car that you wanna restore. You definitely have time. We all have time. 1 of the great little mind hacks that's worked for me is instead of saying, I don't have time to do that thing, I say that thing is not a priority to me. That makes it hurt a lot more.

Right? It's easy to say, I don't have time to go to the gym. It's hard to say, my health is not a priority to me. Even if all you do today is start making that one little mental switch. So instead of saying, I don't have time, you say, x thing is not important to me.

After a while that's gonna start to get to you because you're gonna be a house divided. You're gonna say, this thing I'm gonna do someday is super important. But then on the other hand, gonna say this thing is not important enough to me to find time to do it. And I bet eventually that gets to you. And you decide, screw it.

I'm gonna make the time. It's important to me. I'm gonna stop watching so much Netflix and I'm actually gonna do this thing that I've always wanted to do. And I always said, I'm gonna do it someday. Make today that day.

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