This week in the clinic, I struggled with the loss of control over my patient schedule. Emergencies happen, so control of office hours is always an illusion for a physician. But I also struggled with my tendency to overbook myself in my writing life.
In addition to working on a memoir and publishing a weekly blog, I’m working on getting a poetry chapbook published, writing new poems for a longer manuscript, and applying for an artist grant. I am already behind my self-imposed schedule for writing this week. I want to prove to myself that I have the time to write a book in addition to being a part-time physician.
It’s notable that the working title for my memoir is Promises to Keep. It’s about learning to shift my priorities. I’ve always given priority to the promises I make to others. Now, I’m learning to value the promises I make to myself.
Minimum Viable Success
I’ve gotten much better at this, at prioritizing myself, but I’m still not a natural at it. It’s easy to lapse into people-pleasing. It’s in my personality, and the expectations of women in our culture don’t reinforce my assertiveness in setting boundaries.
When it comes to promises to myself, it’s useful for me to remember the concept of “minimum viable success.” What is the smallest increment of a project that, if I do it, I will be able to say I succeeded? This is a concept I learned from participating in a mastermind run by Dan Blank of We Grow Media.
If you’re looking for support in sharing creative work with an audience, I highly recommend his programs or his book Be the Gateway. If writing one page a day is all I can reasonably expect to accomplish on a busy day, then that’s my “minimum viable” for the day. It may be a stretch to get it done, but it’s not overwhelming.
Juggling Writing and Other Self Care
Not only am I juggling writing with physician time, but my writing competes with other important self-care. As my writing time increased this week, my time at the gym suffered. Jennie Nash, a book coach that I follow, says a writer must decide what she is going to give up in her life in order to make time for writing.
This is a painful acknowledgment since I’ve had to forgo so much in my medical training: sleep, exercise, meals, birthday parties for my nieces. These are no longer things I’m willing to give up, not even for writing. The question remains. What am I willing to give up?
Careful study of how I spend my time may give me a clue. I know I’ve become more productive since taking social media off my phone and hiding the icon for Spider Solitaire on my laptop. On my writing days, I use time blocking.
Lose Track of Time
A list of tasks gets entered into my calendar with a rough estimate of how long it will take to do each task. The time blocks keep me realistic, so I don’t overbook myself. Even with time blocking though, my brain likes to settle into deep thinking. I get into the flow, and I lose track of time.
It happened to me twice today. Early this morning, I had the intention of taking a few minutes to upload my memoir outline to be critiqued by a book coach. When I looked at the requirements carefully though, the document was supposed to be double-spaced, three pages maximum.
My draft was three pages, but it was single spaced. In order to proceed, I had to compress my outline from six pages down to three. So, I did, but when I came up for air, 90 minutes had gone by. In a similar way, I took a “few minutes” this afternoon to submit some poems to a literary journal.
I’ve done this many times, so I have a system, but each time the requirements are slightly different. Some journals want contact information on every poem; some want no contact info at all. Some journals want each poem uploaded individually; some want all poems in one document. By the time I collected the poems as required, another hour had gone by.
But falling into the flow reminds me of something I said in a previous blog post:
The Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to chronological or sequential time, the stress-inducing kind. Kairos signifies a moment of indeterminate time, almost a space in time, the way time feels when you lose track of it. It lengthens or shortens according to its own internal logic.
Being in kairos is the opposite of stressful. Now I’m on the third writing project of the day, writing this blog post. A successful day includes both writing and exercise. I took a walk today; I hit publish on this post. I’ve exceeded my minimum viable success.
I personally feel like I have a million things going on at once in my life. With the balance of a fiance, two children, full time job, internship, and graduate school work, I can only help but feel drowned. This year I have focused more on me, in terms of self-care. I have spent more time with friends. Spending time with friends has helped my mental health tremendously. Just talking to them about the next video games that are coming out or going out for a drink, I feel a little less heavy. I also take time to myself every night to think things over and analyze what my goals are and what I have to do to continue to stay on track and motivated, I guess reminders. This has helped me stay focused these last few months. But I can’t help but feel like I can do more..
Sometimes, when I get overwhelmed with what’s left to do ahead, I stop and take stock of what I’ve already done. I’m always surprised at what can be done over time with persistence.