Wednesday 20 January 2016

The Secret to Having More Time to Write AND a Higher Writing Income

“Time For Change Representing Different Strategy Or Varying” by Stuart Miles
Today I want to share with you a simple way I've found over the years that allows me to have more time to write and helps to increase my writing income.

And what's so simple about it, is because it means you spending less time doing something you're doing now rather than start doing something that you're not used to.

In a nut shell, it's being selective about who you're spending your time with and ditching those that are toxic to you.

You see, they say that you become the average of the 5 people that you spend most of your time with, and this doesn't only mean people in your physical presence. It can also mean those you spend time with online as well as the authors whose books you read and the TV programs and movies you watch.

Online it's important to notice who you interact with on FaceBook and Twitter and the social media sites as well as the blogs you follow and the articles you read.

What I've come to realise is that most of the things we do online are a complete waste of time and some of it can be toxic too if you spend your time responding to trolls.

A few months ago I decided to block everyone on social media who was negative and nasty. I don't mean anyone who disagreed with me about something, but those trolls who are downright derogatory and hateful. So I began blocking anyone who I considered a troll or a waste of my time because I don't want to read anything they post and I don't want them to see anything I post either.

And this has turned out to be a significant time saver.

This same principle can be applied to everyone you spend time with whether it's in person, on the phone, or online.

So I began to be more selective about who I was spending my precious time with.

I unsubscribed from quite a few emails, purged my RSS reader of feeds, stopped reading books that were a waste of time and instead started looking for a few inspirational and informational books and blogs. And it's surprising how few I actually found. Most of the sites online either aren't informative or they contradict what they say all the time so I'm uneasy that they're always telling the truth.

Next I stopped watching certain programs on TV because they just weren't of any real value to me. They were just my excuse to slump on the couch and do nothing.

I also stopped spending time with people I didn't really want to be with. I think we all have people in our lives that we spend time with just because we think we "should" or because we've been associating with them for so long that it's hard to stop.

I stopped by cutting conversations short either in person and especially on the phone. If the conversation started to get gossipy or what the other person was saying was of no interest to me, instead of feigning interest, I just excused myself and left.

Anyway, the upshot of it all was that reading became more fun, I was following less people on social media, I didn't have to spend time with people I didn't want to be with,  watched a lot less TV, and so I gained a whole lot more time.

And then I used that time to write more and my writing income increased because I was working more and being inspired by my new associations. I also found I had more time for other things that I wanted to do like walk my dogs and work in the garden.

So if you have people in your life who are wasting your time, either online or offline, purge your relationships and spend time only with those you want to be with and free up more time for the things you want to do.

It's really amazing how those small pockets of time we waste add up to hours and hours.

And you're new found time can be used for doing  more writing and increasing your writing income too because not only will you feel freer, but you'll also feel more in control and more inspired.




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