Over the past year I've been building TeamworkHub. Before that it was something else, and before that another thing. All the way back to when I was a kid building things with an erector set and whatever broken appliance and electronic parts I could confiscate from my parents. I guess I've always been building something.
It's easy to get caught up in the trap of wishing I had more time to focus exclusively on building. "If I could just have 6 months to work exclusively on this, I'm sure I could [make millions, paint the Mona Lisa, write that Piano Sonata]!" But, there are bills to pay, fun to be had, and demands on our time each day. Often the things we are building aren't what pay the bills (at least not at first!) We are left to our own desires and motivations to find time to build stuff.
The ironic (and awesome!) thing I've learned is that having long stretches of uninterrupted devoted time isn't always the most productive way to build something. Often, smaller blocks of planned time to build can actually be more productive!
When I do manage to have large chunks of uninterrupted time my mind tends to focus less. "Ah, all this time to work. Finally! Let me pick just the right music to play for this grand occasion! I'll find my comfy coding hoodie, brew some coffee, …." and before I know it I've eaten up most of the day embracing my time to code, but getting very little done.
I find that short bursts of planned work, with time to reflect afterwards can actually be the the most productive for me. I don't like to think thats the case. I like to think if I had those large chunks of time I could get more done. But a lot of my "aha" moments seem to come subconsciously when doing something else after short bursts of focused work. The brain can be pretty strange about that.
Sure there are exceptions. Sometimes you get into the zone and are cranking away, and another few hours would be really productive. But you can't always force those things to happen on the day you have a large chunk of time available. They happen when they happen. You embrace them when they do happen. Maybe go to work or bed an hour late while you run with an idea. But just because you have a large chuck of time available doesn't mean you'll be able to get into the zone.
A few months back I was reading Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. I came across a passage from a letter that Mozart wrote to his sister shortly after moving off on his own to Vienna to be a freelance composer and performer. Mozart wrote to his sister that he could only find a couple of hours a day to compose, usually between 7 and 9 AM.
From around 9am to 1pm Mozart taught piano lessons to pay the bills. From 1pm until late in the evening he socialized at whatever event he could get an invitation to in order to schmooze and get his name around while looking for composing and performing work. He would sometimes compose again for a couple of hours in the evening around 9pm, but often after wining and dining he couldn't get back to composing.
This is Mozart. Mozart! And even he wasn't able to always dedicate all his time to composing, but had to pay bills and do other things like the rest of us at various points in his life.
Don't let the current circumstances of the day prevent you from carving out your time to do your calling work. Find an hour or two a day to build something, write something, work on something, or learn something.
Embrace your time to compose in the hour or two that you have.
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