On a recent episode of the Making It podcast, the topic was “how do I quit my job and build stuff for a living?” Bob Clagett chimed in with some very thought provoking comments. (Note that he says these come from the book “Quitter” by Jon Acuff.) Bob doesn’t make stuff full time. He still has a day job. So how does he divide up his time? Here are the three work categories he uses along with my thoughts on them.
- Day job. I like my job but if I could do anything in the world, I wouldn’t be doing my current job. If you’re in the same boat, it doesn’t mean that your job needs to be a complete waste of your time. What can you learn from your job that benefits your passion? Also remember, that depending on your situation, your day job is probably what you do to make your passion possible. It generates the income and provides you with health insurance.
- Spend time with family. Having a good family life isn’t something that happens by accident. It takes work and you should be accounting for it when you’re planning out how to spend your time.
- Do what you love. This can be the easiest bucket to fill, but it’s also one that we can misuse easily. This isn’t a bucket for surfing Facebook, reading random internet sites (ahem, like this one), or staring at the TV. Pick one or two things that you love and really want to focus on and devote your time to them.
Few things in my life had made me more conscious of how I spend my time than having a child. These three buckets are a great place to start. I’m still trying to work out how things like paying bills, making dinner and cleaning up fit into this but I suppose that could fit into building a good family environment. And of course, as a Christian, my faith is the most important thing to me. That should weave it’s way through all aspects of my life but also deserves it’s own bucket of dedicated time.
It has already been useful to think of my time in terms of these buckets. Instead of thinking “is this a worthwhile activity”, it’s better to think “is this the most rewarding/important thing I can do right now?” I do try to set aside one evening a week to just veg out and watch a movie or something, but most nights, I need to take advantage of my limited non-work time to fill up the other buckets!
Time Management
Few things in my life had made me more conscious of how I spend my time than having a child. These three buckets are a great place to start. I’m still trying to work out how things like paying bills, making dinner and cleaning up fit into this but I suppose that could fit into building a good family environment. And of course, as a Christian, my faith is the most important thing to me. That should weave it’s way through all aspects of my life but also deserves it’s own bucket of dedicated time.
It has already been useful to think of my time in terms of these buckets. Instead of thinking “is this a worthwhile activity”, it’s better to think “is this the most rewarding/important thing I can do right now?” I do try to set aside one evening a week to just veg out and watch a movie or something, but most nights, I need to take advantage of my limited non-work time to fill up the other buckets!