How I Make Time to Write with A Full-Time Job, Family, and More
Graduate school.
Full-time engineering job.
A wife and two kids.
A teaching position at church.
A sweet ghostwriting gig.
And I am here writing on Medium every weekday.
How in the world do I do it all?
I hadn’t even thought about it much until someone asked me how I make time to write. Isn’t it funny, how life sneaks up on you like that, and you suddenly realize you are unaware of how you ended up where you are now?
Looking back, however, I can see exactly how I ended up here, and every step I took to get here.
For me, it started all the way back in high school.
I am the son of a third-grade teacher. And one of the best teachers there is. My Dad is one of the smartest people I know, and he taught me something that is as much my reason for writing as it is my entire message.
In the New Testament, there are very few verses about who Jesus Christ was in his teenage years. As a teenager, I found this fascinating when my Dad pointed this out to me.
Now, regardless of what you believe about Jesus, He was a great man who has had an incredibly massive difference in this world. I think that everybody can learn from Him, regardless of what they believe about Him.
In the Gospel of Luke, who, uncoincidentally, my parents named me after, we get one little verse that gives us a wealth of knowledge about Jesus’ teenage years.
“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” — Luke 2:52
There are four distinct areas, or pillars, as I call them, that we can identify here.
Favor with God = spiritually
Favor with man = socially/family
Wisdom = mentally/financially
Stature = physically
Fifteen years ago My Dad taught me to center my goals around these four.
And I have spent the last fifteen years learning from setting goals in each of these pillars every year.
The reason I can give time to write on Medium so much isn’t some fantastic life hack. It’s just a simple matter of setting balanced goals and allocating adequate time to each of them.
And the fact that I’ve been practicing it for over a decade and a half.
One way to make sure to give adequate time to each of these four pillars of a happy, abundant life, is to chunk your time.
I plan my weeks every Sunday using Google Calendar. I have color-coded calendars for each of the four pillars. Yellow is spiritual, Purple is for Family, Green & orange are for financial (more on why another day), and blue is physical.
Sometime I will go into more detail about my methodology for planning what you see here. And especially why there isn’t more yellow even though it’s the most important pillar to me.
While I try not to take myself too seriously, I do my very best to make this calendar accurate to what I plan on actually doing. In the spirit of Cal Newport’s Deep Work, when I have scheduled time for Family, I am with my Family and not trying to do anything else.
That includes having one of my new airpod-style earbuds in listening to my favorite books.
The same goes for each of the other four pillars.
Planning in this way allows me to be fully present when I am at work, or writing on Medium, or whatever else it is that I have intended to do. And again, I try not to take myself too seriously, so sometimes there is room to adjust and do two things at once.
I’m not perfect, but I’m trying to be my best and do what’s right.
I have always set my goals around these four pillars and I always will. One of the most significant contributors to my success here and in other aspects of life is finding intrinsic motivation. I am learning to enjoy the process, rather than merely seeking outcomes only.
I make time for writing on Medium because I love doing it. Being here makes my life better. My marriage, finances, and mental health have all been significantly improved because of my experiences as a Medium writer.
If you want the exact document I created and use to set goals centered around these four pillars, click here to get my free guide that will teach you how. You’ll also see the steps I take to set bulletproof goals so that you don’t give up on them at the beginning of the year!
