In what can only be a bit of irony I was so distracted with other things this week that this post is going up a few hours late. I had one of those "Oh, shoot, it's Sunday and the Patreon post isn't up!" moments. And yes, that is the result of another "giving away my time" issue, which I will talk about in the next Dispatch. At least I am getting paid for this one, but it has eaten up a lot of time.
Well, I promised to be honest, and to report successes and failures. No covering up, or pretending it didn’t happen. So here goes.
Now that you’re retired you have all the time in the world. Right? You can create whenever you want, for as long as you want. Your schedule is your own, you can come and go as you wish. You can choose to have coffee with friends, or travel. Whatever you want. After all, you have all the time in the world.
Right?
Wrong!
If you want to be a creative of any kind you do not have all the time in the world. You do have time for the things that are most important to you, just as you always have. But, just as always, people will assume that since you no longer have a “real” job you can give that time away.
This isn’t a new problem for creatives. People have always assumed that a creative person can just adjust their schedule at a moment’s notice; that they do have all the time in the world.
As a creative, protecting your time has always been a struggle. You already had to work around a job, a family, responsibilities at home, exercise to maintain your health – a laundry list of other concerns.
You want to help. You want to socialize. You want to volunteer at your kid’s school, or the food bank, or the local animal shelter. You want to take time to watch a movie with your partner, or bake cookies just because you can.
But now it’s worse. Now, with the demands of a day job schedule removed you may feel like you do have time for all those other things. Without that pesky day job eating up all those hours every day you can do anything.
No.
No you can’t.
The reality is that those day job hours were forty hours out of one hundred sixty eight every week. Less than a quarter of your time. Time that you always told yourself you could use for writing, painting, jewelry making, knitting, gourmet cooking, wine making, woodworking – for whatever is your creative endeavor. For whatever has always had to fit into your other schedule.
Now you are tempted to give that time away, to do all those things you “missed” when you took time to be creative.
How do I know all this? I would love to claim that it’s because I have learned to protect my creative time over the years and I am successfully translating that skill to retirement.
The truth is it’s because I have already, less than two weeks into retirement, failed miserably. The other sad truth is that I wasn’t that good at protecting my time before I retired, so this isn’t a new problem. Just a much problem-er problem.
It was a little thing, hardly more than an inconvenience, but it was also indicative of a larger problem; of an attitude that could torpedo my entire third act.
Our small town is just over one hundred miles from the closest airport. There are a couple local landing strips, but nothing that can accommodate a commercial flight. Getting to or from the airport takes close to three hours of driving, more if you encounter traffic. And there is always traffic.
A few days after I retired I was talking to a friend who was planning to visit. They weren’t sure if they would drive or fly, and mentioned that flying would mean renting a car to get here from the airport.
Without thinking I answered. “Or we could pick you up. It’s only a couple hours, and I’m retired,” I laughed.
What was I thinking? Honestly, I wasn’t. I wasn’t thinking about how that “couple hours” could be four or more-each way-if we hit traffic. How seeing a good friend would mean we’d probably stop for coffee on the way, maybe even grab a bite to eat because they would be hungry after traveling. How we could get lost in conversation and spend a couple hours on that “quick” stop for coffee.
How a “couple hours” could turn into an entire day, with hours in traffic and on mountain roads, and exhaustion when I finally reached home. How a “couple hours” could cost me a full day of writing.
And how easily one day could turn into several, every week. Because I now have “all the time in the world.”
You and I, we don’t have all the time in the world. We still have only one hundred sixty eight hours in each week. We don’t have to give someone else forty of those hours (plus commuting time if you live in a larger city; my commute was only two miles, but I am an exception) but time is still a finite resource, and one we shouldn’t give away without thought.
This is not to say we shouldn’t do those other things. Many of them are things that make life worthwhile. Time with friends and family is precious, as is time to travel, or enrich our lives by volunteering, or taking yoga classes, or studying gourmet cooking. But don’t put your creative time last on your schedule.
I really wish I could say I caught myself, but if I am going to be honest here I must admit I didn’t. My friend, a very successful writer and a dear friend of more than 30 years, caught me and called me on it. Can’t say it was a pleasant experience – it almost never is when someone you love calls you on your own BS – but they were right to do it. I needed the reminder.
I know I will make this mistake again, and my friend won’t always be around to catch me on it. My hope is that by sharing my failure here it will serve as a reminder in the future, because I really don’t have all the time in the world.
And how do we protect that creative time? Well, that’s a topic for another day. For now we just have be vigilant, to choose when and where to give away our time and guard against those unthinking impulses.