Okay, then. You decide that you have a gift, a talent, or maybe you just want to start a new hobby. How can you start? It seems that there is time for all the stuff you have to do, but no time for all the stuff you want to do. One possibility is to make an inventory of your time. This is one thing that I would never do, but some people are very list-oriented, and this is for them. Making an inventory of your time would give you a good account of your day. You'd have to be serious about it and jot down everything you do--important or not, wasteful or not--in your day. After that inventory, you'll have a good sense of where you waste minutes or maybe even hours. For example, do you sit at the computer for 2 hours during your day? Do you spend your evenings watching tv? You can decide to take an hour of that time and devote it to your avocation.
I am not list oriented. Lists make me crazy. I obsess over them, and then I "forget" to do them. I learned long ago that as useful as they are, they are unfortunately not for me. What I do instead is make a decision based on my understanding of where I am. For example, blogging. I am very much a routine person. Maybe that's why I don't do lists-I know my routine and don't ever vary it much. So I know that in the morning I get up, take my meds, and put on the coffee. Then while I wait for the coffee to perk (or whatever drip coffee does while becoming that stuff of dreams), I play on the computer. When the coffee is ready, I make breakfast and eat it at the computer. Bad for me, I know, but this post is not about breaking bad habits. I realized that in this morning routine, I could easily carve out time to blog. So I simply carved out a chunk of time by making the decision to blog before anything else. After I finished my post (while waiting for the coffee--nothing comes before that), I would be free to check emails, FB, and so on.
Okay, so time has been located and designated. How can you make sure that you do, in fact, use that time to start doing that thing you want to do? NOTE: Since I don't want to keep saying "that thing you want to do", I'm going to pretend that what you want to do is to blog. One thing that you can do is to make it desirable to do it. If you want to blog about nature, put pictures of nature around your workspace. Make it comfortable. Make sure that your area is as clear of disruptions as possible. I realize that if you're a single mom with 4 kids, that's not going to be easy, but that's part of the inventory/routine issue. If you know that your children are going to be a disruption, then schedule time before they wake up or after they go to bed. Make sure that you keep material that is going to distract you--unpaid bills, unfinished work, etc--out of your line of site. I have a computer desk with shelves on either side. My stuff is on the shelves and not in my line of site. I know it's there and can work on it when needed, but it doesn't distract me as I'm working.
It takes time to make a new routine into a habit. If you forget to blog on your given day, don't beat yourself up. That's what makes people--especially those of us who have been abused or have been hit with loss or other trauma--give up. Instead, forgive yourself and if you have time, do it right then. If not, just make yourself the promise that you will continue to blog. The main thing is to be good to yourself. You are loved and you can rest assured that God will not be disappointed in your mistake. He understands that you're human. So if God himself forgives you, surely you can forgive yourself.
So there you go. There's no time like the present to start. Whether it's blogging, playing the piano, singing, or learning that new skill, I hope you start finding time to practice it. You'll be happy that you did!