Accountability and Time Management for Creative Business People
A lot of writing friends and I have discovered some extremely helpful planning calendars that help us to keep accountable. We’ve been sharing our daily, weekly and monthly career goals, and sharing again in hindsight, what got done, what didn’t, how we can do better next time.
I’ve been setting more and more goals. In the first 3 months of 2016, I rewrote 3 entire novels, packaged them, promoted them, and launched them, totally revamped two websites, wrote 22 blog posts, started a new book, started a new serial, and about a thousand other important, vital, career building things.
As I always do, I pondered the deeper meaning behind the event. [bctt tweet=”Why had I manifested an injury? The answer was obvious. I’d been working too hard, my spirit needed a break, my soul needed some love. http://www.blissblog.org”] It’s pretty much the only reason I ever manifest an injury.
I realized then that I need to be accountable for more than just my work goals. I need to be accountable for the care and feeding of my spirit.
What good is building a successful career, or becoming rich and famous, if you never take time to enjoy it? Working all day to create wealth, spending that wealth on fun things like a new swimming pool or a luxurious vacation home, and then never taking the time to use those things? Is that really sane? Isn’t it, at the very least, missing the entire point?
We came into this physical existence in order to bask in it, to experience all of it, to enjoy and relish every pleasure our senses can detect. Not to spend all day every day glued to an electronic screen. [bctt tweet=”Yes, we are creators and we came here to create. But the biggest thing we came to create is our lives. http://www.blissblog.org”]
Block out 10-15 minutes for daily meditation, if that’s your thing.
Block out a 30-45 minute window for taking a walk or jog outside.
Slow your mornings. Savor your coffee. Listen to the birds. Don’t wake and hit the keyboard.
Set a quitting time at day’s end, and stick to it.
Try unplugging entirely on weekends, or even 1 day a week.
Take a few days or even a whole week off between major projects.
Try scheduling tasks like housework or gardening in between blocks of screen time.
Unplug during meal times. Yes, even lunch.
Put some fun into every single day. Fun is the reason we’re here.
Our sanity and joy are the most important parts of our success in life, in business, in creating. They really are. [bctt tweet=”Success isn’t measured by the hours you spend at the keyboard, but by the joy your work brings into your life. http://www.blissblog.org”]
And there’s one more thing. Our inner beings, our spirits, our souls, poured a small part of themselves into our physical forms—created them, actually—so that they could experience the pleasures, joys and adventures of life here in the physical world. They are the larger part of us. They are who we really are. But when we get here, we become convinced by our own illusions. We think we are this body. We think we are the myriad thoughts racing through our heads. But we’re not. We’re our souls, the part of our souls that lives in our bodies, and the bigger part that remains unfettered by physicality, but is part of the Whole, of All that is.
Our inner beings are looking out through our eyes. They are hearing through our ears, and feeling through our skin and nerve endings. They smell and taste and thrill whenever we do. They did not make this powerful, miraculous journey into humanity, in order to sit in the back while we put all our focus on work. They came to have experiences; to play, to bask, to relish, to love and be loved, to laugh, to eat chocolate and cake, to have sex, to smell apple blossoms and roses. And yes, to create. That’s a joyful experience, too.
When we feel good, when we are happy, our passenger (our true self) is enjoying the ride. Let’s show her a good time.
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