Writing for this blog is a luxury. I don’t make any money from it. Arguably it doesn’t help any of my business or commercial projects. I could be spending this time doing something more “productive.” Aside from some personal fulfillment and achieving a long-term goal, there really are no tangible benefits of taking the time to work on this. Some day in the future I may look back at these words and laugh because the blog has led to unforeseen opportunities, but as of now it is simply something I've decided is important to me.

I’ve been asked by a few people, and hinted at by others, how I manage to “find the time” to write these posts. In thinking about how to respond, I realized that this is a perfect example of how to be more effective and productive as a person. First, no one “finds” time for anything. Those that get things done understand that time is their most valuable asset and they guard it accordingly. They identify priorities, break them into projects and tasks, and schedule time to get the work done. This can be extremely difficult in a world where we are constantly bombarded with notifications of varying importance. Writing for a blog could be compared to long-term, important but not urgent projects that are easily set aside or procrastinated. 

More practically, there are plenty of activities that consume much of our day and can (should) be deprioritized to make room for the things that lead you to achieving your goals. Below, some ideas:

Spend less time on your feeds. Today, the average person spends nearly two hours (teens up to nine hours) per day on social platforms. Sadly, at this point, stats like these are unlikely to shock us. If you feel like you don't have enough time to get things done, try going a week without looking at a single social feed and see how bored you get.

Watch less TV. I’m sure we have all heard this one, but its something I struggle with myself. When I really want to get something done, I will come home and sit at my dining room table rather than turning the TV right away. I won’t bother looking up the average hours per day spent on this because it is depressing, but its often the most difficult to break habits that produce the most outsized results.

Wake up earlier. After 4 years of waking up between 5 and 5:15AM for rowing team practice in college, I hate waking up early to work out. However, at some point my days became too unpredictable for me to reliably train in the evenings, so I shifted my schedule to make time in the morning. I established that it was a priority to me then pushed things aside to make work.

Put it on your calendar. One pitfall for those of us who are list makers is to assume that making the list is enough and that we will find time to work our way through it. I’ve found much greater success if I actually block time on my calendar to work on important tasks. Critically, that time should be focused and without distraction. One example of this is for my weekly review, which has a standing hour on Friday afternoons and allows me to organize my life before going into the weekend.

Weekends are optional. Another entrepreneurial cliche, but one that should be taken to heart. If you have things you want to accomplish in life but spend your weekends downing bottomless mimosas or binge-watching Netflix, you probably don’t want to achieve those things badly enough. Hustle is an underrated, under appreciated and often completely absent quality in this day and age.

Ultimately, all the productivity hacks in the world won't do anything if you can't commit to the things you deem most important. Identify key goals and outcomes in your life that will make everything else unnecessary or irrelevant and pursue those things relentlessly. "Finding time" is the wrong phrase. "Taking time" is more appropriate. It is not going to fall into your lap. Get to it.