There are 8,760 hours in a year. Every one of us has this much time to work with in the span of 12 months. No more, no less. 8,760 hours. That’s a lot of time to work with, if you think about it.
But is it really? Let’s start the whittling process.
Immediately disregard 1/3 of those hours, or 2,920. That’s for sleep, 8 hours a day. Yeah, you could sleep less to get more done, but that’s not really such a good idea. Trust me, with a newborn I am in-the-know here. Anything less than 8 hours a day and you’re going to see a big decline in efficiency. Whether it’s overall energy, or the ability to focus and concentrate, or the ability to maintain that even keel, you’ll not be at your maximum bestest if you aren’t spending 2,920 hour a year in deep delta wave activity.
Now, you need to pay bills, buy food and necessities, and provide for you or your kids’ futures if possible. To do this you need an income. I’m going to assume that the vast majority of us, ninety percent sounds ’bout right, do not earn this income doing what we envisioned ourselves doing when we were much younger and more idealistic. True, I estimate about ten percent of us out there are happy and fulfilled and jazzed about their day-to-day labor. Regardless, you need to spend 40 hours a week at this job. Add in an hour a day for lunch. Tack on, say, two hours in the morning to get ready and get in to the place of work and an hour in the evening coming home. We’re talking 20 hours a week for lunch, prep and commuting time. That’s 60 hours a week or 3,120 hours a year. Yikes!
So now we’re down to 2,720 discretionary hours a year. But wait, I’m forgetting the most important part! Family. Nuclear and extended all the way down to mere acquaintances. The pleasant, warm bondings with your spouse and children, and the not-so-pleasant social obligations you can’t get out of. I’m also including time spent maintaining your household here, too, such as the time spent shopping or yardwork or school and day-care drop offs, everything and anything. How about a completely arbitrary but fairly reasonable estimate that 75% of this remaining discretionary time will be spent on this part of your life? Okay. That’s 2,040 hours a year.
And 680 hours a year remain FOR YOU. Think that’s too little? Think that’s not enough to accomplish that BIG DREAM? Think again. That’s one hour and 51 minutes a day. A hundred and eleven minutes, this day, tonight, every day. Just under two hours a day. About thirteen hours a week. If you think really hard about this, it’s not as bad as our lazy excuse-seeking minds want to make it.
If I write 750 words an hour on a first draft, that’s 9,750 words a week, or a 100,000 word first draft in only a little over ten weeks! Jeez, I could write, edit, and rewrite almost three medium-sized novels a year at that rate! Of course, it’s not reasonable to expect those hundred and eleven minutes to be spent in a continuous blur of fingers over keypads. But you get the idea.
I wish I could get my lazy excuse-making brain around it.
But is it really? Let’s start the whittling process.
Immediately disregard 1/3 of those hours, or 2,920. That’s for sleep, 8 hours a day. Yeah, you could sleep less to get more done, but that’s not really such a good idea. Trust me, with a newborn I am in-the-know here. Anything less than 8 hours a day and you’re going to see a big decline in efficiency. Whether it’s overall energy, or the ability to focus and concentrate, or the ability to maintain that even keel, you’ll not be at your maximum bestest if you aren’t spending 2,920 hour a year in deep delta wave activity.
Now, you need to pay bills, buy food and necessities, and provide for you or your kids’ futures if possible. To do this you need an income. I’m going to assume that the vast majority of us, ninety percent sounds ’bout right, do not earn this income doing what we envisioned ourselves doing when we were much younger and more idealistic. True, I estimate about ten percent of us out there are happy and fulfilled and jazzed about their day-to-day labor. Regardless, you need to spend 40 hours a week at this job. Add in an hour a day for lunch. Tack on, say, two hours in the morning to get ready and get in to the place of work and an hour in the evening coming home. We’re talking 20 hours a week for lunch, prep and commuting time. That’s 60 hours a week or 3,120 hours a year. Yikes!
So now we’re down to 2,720 discretionary hours a year. But wait, I’m forgetting the most important part! Family. Nuclear and extended all the way down to mere acquaintances. The pleasant, warm bondings with your spouse and children, and the not-so-pleasant social obligations you can’t get out of. I’m also including time spent maintaining your household here, too, such as the time spent shopping or yardwork or school and day-care drop offs, everything and anything. How about a completely arbitrary but fairly reasonable estimate that 75% of this remaining discretionary time will be spent on this part of your life? Okay. That’s 2,040 hours a year.
And 680 hours a year remain FOR YOU. Think that’s too little? Think that’s not enough to accomplish that BIG DREAM? Think again. That’s one hour and 51 minutes a day. A hundred and eleven minutes, this day, tonight, every day. Just under two hours a day. About thirteen hours a week. If you think really hard about this, it’s not as bad as our lazy excuse-seeking minds want to make it.
If I write 750 words an hour on a first draft, that’s 9,750 words a week, or a 100,000 word first draft in only a little over ten weeks! Jeez, I could write, edit, and rewrite almost three medium-sized novels a year at that rate! Of course, it’s not reasonable to expect those hundred and eleven minutes to be spent in a continuous blur of fingers over keypads. But you get the idea.
I wish I could get my lazy excuse-making brain around it.
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