Sunday, August 23, 2009

Every day is getting shorter...


Today is part 25 of a 30 day commitment. To read about how I am blogging to change my life please read here first.

When I started writing daily in this blog 25 days ago I had decided to take a first step. I have been thinking about writing a book for the last two years and decided to just start. It is hard to start. Maybe sometimes it is hard for a reason. Maybe it is not the right time yet. Maybe the idea just isn't formed well enough yet. I know for me I have a hard time starting when I don't have a perfect picture in my head yet.

I know that my daily life ends up getting filled with routines. Some of them are especially non-productive. I was regularly checking on a couple blogs, 3 chat boards, facebook and reading emails on a high traffic email list. I know when I'm doing it that I am really diverting time away from the things that I could be doing to increase the quality of my life, but it seems like I just get into a routine and check all this online stuff out of habit.

One message board that I belong to is a group of top ebay sellers. I have been a member of this group for 4 years. I have travelled all over the US to attend meetings. As my business moved away from relying to much on ebay I still found myself going to the message boards often. I am amazed at the amount of time that some of the members spend on the board. I am often struck by how much more productive they could be if they put that much energy into their business! The board is full of threads that complain about how ebay is changing and their business is suffering but yet they are spending 1/2 the day on the computer instead of putting that energy into building their own website and finding other venues to sell their product.

I am trying really hard to pay attention to the things that are time wasters. I am trying to use that time that I would have been wasting on working on my book and new business ideas. Right now I could easily be having a drink and watching TV.

On the radio today I heard Pink Floyd's "Time". Every time I hear the lyrics I get spooked. I am terrified of finding myself on my deathbed with a list of things that I never accomplished.

"And then one day you find ten years have got behind you,
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun."


I'm going to write this damn book!

No comments: