At SXSW 2019, author Austin Kleon said that it’s important to be passionate about our work, but that we must schedule time for our art as if it were work. Whether we’re a full-time artist (writer, filmmaker, etc.) or we only do it in our free time, we have to block time on our calendar to work every day, even if it’s only 30 minutes.
We can’t afford to wait until we’re inspired, we have free time, and all the stars align for us to sit down and create our masterpiece. We must not only make it part of our routine, but we must literally block time for the routine in our calendar. Once it’s there, we must guard that time as if we had scheduled the most important of work meetings. Because we have. If we don’t, things will inevitably come up, we’ll be too tired, we’ll get distracted, we’ll make excuses, and we’ll never actually get the work done.
I blocked off time to write this past week, and I got more creative work done than I have in any week for many months. Notably, it didn’t feel like I worked any more than a typical week.