The 3 Things You Need More Than “More Time”

Awhile back, I wrote a post about how I’ve started writing again after a five-year hiatus, and how – in so doing – I’ve discovered anew what a load of nonsense it was to think that “time” was the thing keeping me from writing for the past half-decade. I also talked about Jeff Bezos’s home life for a bit.

In that post, I speculated that my “if only I had more time…” excuses were actually a concealer for the three things that were truly standing between me and meaningful progress in my writing: direction, urgency, and discipline.

The more I’ve considered these three things and the role their presence (or absence) has played in my life, the more I’m convinced that nothing of significance has ever been accomplished without direction, urgency, and discipline. (Doesn’t role off the tongue quite like Emerson’s, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” But I’m rusty. We’ll get there.)

And so – if you’ll indulge a 1,000-word Ted Talk to myself – I thought I’d explore the role each has played in my writing. 

Direction

Where there is no vision, the people perish. (Proverbs 29:18)

Five-ish years ago I convinced a publisher to print a book I had written. It wasn’t quite the life-affirming masterpiece I’d envisioned it being, but it was the conclusion of two years of considerable effort. And a meaningful personal milestone. The problem was, once it was done, I didn’t have another milestone to replace it with.

When I was working on the book, I knew where I was going. I knew what I was working toward. I could draw a straight line between my daily activities and an outcome that was important to me. Once it was finished, I asked “what’s next?” I didn’t have an answer, and my writing languished as a result.

Nothing animates activity like a clearly understood and personally compelling vision of where you’re going. This is not a revolutionary idea. People like Gary Vaynerchuk, Simon Sinek, and anyone you know who has read “Good To Great” have all discussed it at length.

And yet many of us have never taken the time to take a break, look around, and actually consider the direction we’re heading. We’ve laughed off the “where do you see yourself in five years” question as a cliché for so long that we’ve stopped even bothering to answer for it. Is it any wonder, then, that so many of us feel listless and unfulfilled in our careers?

Every job. Every company. Every relationship, hobby, and idle pursuit is taking us somewhere. It’s worth considering whether that somewhere is someplace we actually want to be. If it’s not, then why take one step further? And if it is, then what are we waiting for?  

Urgency

When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. – Harry Burns (When Harry Met Sally)

The other life event that conspired to put an end to my writing was that I got a job I actually liked. What a drag, right?

For most of my 20s, I was convinced that being a critically and commercially adored writer was the only career that would provide any measure of personal fulfillment. But then I discovered the world of tech startups. And business development. And companies building software to help mission-driven organizations do amazing things. And suddenly, writing was no longer a life or death scenario. It was a fun hobby. It would be cool to get paid for it one day, but there was no rush. 

Knowing what you want out of life, naturally breeds an impatience to see it achieved. When I knew I wanted to write for a living, every working moment spent not writing for a living felt like a waste of time. “Living your best life” wasn’t even a thing yet, but I already knew I wasn’t doing it. So I wrote. And I wrote. And I wrote. Partly because I loved it, but mostly because it was my only way out.

Teams chasing championships. Creatives racing a deadline. Activists advocating for change. They’re all in a hurry. They’re not just idly considering what it could look like to “be in a better place.” They’ve seen that better place, and they know there’s not a minute to spare. Because if it’s just a matter of “getting there when we get there,” we probably never will. 

Discipline

 “I write a little each day, without hope, without despair.” – Isak Dinesen

I’ve saved the best (and most boring) for last. The third and final thing that changed with my writing five years ago was that I quit doing it every day.

Writing went from being an “every day no matter what” thing to a “when I get some time” thing. As I wrote less frequently, writing became more difficult and less fun. Surprising to no one, the harder and less fun it became, the more I struggled to find even a few minutes for it. Also, I’d just gotten Netflix and all those seasons of House of Cards weren’t going to watch themselves.

We all know that exercise requires consistency and increasing intensity to be effective. We forget that the same principle applies to just about everything else in life. Phone sales, software development, networking, public speaking, they all have a certain “muscle memory” to them. The more we do them, the easier they get. The easier they get, the more we enjoy them. The more we enjoy them, the more we want to do them. And so on.

 “You are what you repeatedly do.” It was true 2,300 years ago when Aristotle first said it, and it’s true today. You’re not an actor if you’re not acting. You’re not a runner if you’re not running. You’re not getting any closer to that MBA, new business idea, or writing career by talking about it. “Doing the damn thing” will always be the first, final, and foundational step in any journey. It’s not sexy, but it works.  

I’ll be the first to admit: blaming our failure to launch on all that time we don’t have feels good. It accomplishes the impressive trick of simultaneously making us feel important and like a martyr. It also removes our culpability in doing anything about it. It’s not our fault. Our calendar is just. Too. Jammed. We’d fix it if we could, but…¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Shifting the blame from a lack of time to a lack of direction, urgency, or discipline puts the problem squarely within our control. It’s humbling, but it’s also actionable. It gives us a problem to fix, a project to work on. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll get us moving.