If you’re like me–and since I’m writing this for myself, you ARE me (did this just get super weird already and that was only the first sentence yes that happened)–you’re currently in a very busy phase of your life. Maybe, prior to this, you were not so busy. Maybe, prior to this, you were kind of a loafer; you had a schedule, sure, but it consisted mostly of how to spend your free time before rehearsal. Maybe, with a “transition period” that included taking a month in rural Virginia to write all the time with no distractions, you became instantaneously more busy than you’ve ever been in a city that is always more busy than everywhere else ever. Now, if you are me, you have a full-time working week; rehearsals, book clubs, blog posts, videos, writing, etc. to do at night; friends who once loved and admired you and saw you kind of regularly; a new and exciting dating life; errands to run or things to clean or meals to eat occasionally; and also a deep-rooted need for at least 7 hours of sleep per night.
This is your guide to getting more time out of your day.
1. Give up sleeping.
Oh, I know it was on your list. I know you’re a person who feels dead inside if she gets under 7 hours of sleep, let alone for 7 days at a time, let alone for all the weeks in a month, all the months in the year, etc. But you have got to find a way to remedy this. You are giving up so much time in the “evenings” by “sleeping” when you could be “doing other things.” Read a book about wolves and study up on their sleeping patterns. Come to terms with losing about half your personality to sleep deprivation. This is what you’re going to have to do if you want to read both Swann’s Way and Ulyssess at the same time (you pretentious asshole).
2. Give up watching TV.
I know, I know–this, coming to you from the same author who wrote this article, but TV watching takes up a lot of time. Yes, you may have just gotten into “Breaking Bad” which is a hefty undertaking, as well as “Archer” which is an awesome undertaking though definitely less of a commitment, but you should be writing instead of watching episodes of those, or blogging instead of watching episodes, or reading instead of watching episodes, or cleaning your room, or organizing your closet, or upkeeping social media for two different companies, or SLEEPING (which, if you successfully completed step 1 in this list, you no longer have to worry about! Good for you.).
3. Do not have friends.
They will want to see you. They will get mad at you for not seeing them. They will distract you with things like concerts and ice cream and late-night drinks. These will not help you get things done. They will not help you get things done unless they are doing them for you, or helping you to do them. Then, they are no longer friends, they are “co-workers,” and you don’t want to get too friendly with those anyway.
4. Maximize your brain power.
Me, I spend most of my time thinking about things I need to be doing. This is useless. Think of all the things I could be doing in the time I’m thinking about doing them! If I could streamline my brain function so that I can cut out the time it takes to think about things, then I could get a lot more things done. Unfortunately, I think that kind of high-level brain reformation would take a lot of time to accomplish, thus defeating the purpose of doing it in the first place.
5. Stop performing basic human tics.
Let’s take a quiz, a simple yes-or-no one. Do the following take time:
- Going to the bathroom?
- Eating and/or drinking?
- Showering and/or grooming?
- Blinking?
- Breathing?
These are all instances when you could be researching writing residencies, or uploading your scene assignments to dropbox, or speed-reading your book for Thursday’s book club.
Once you’ve mastered these few simple things, you will have anywhere from 30 seconds to 8 hours of extra time in your day, depending on the difficulty and duration of the things you master! You may be unhappy, unhealthy, and totally and completely alone, but on the upswing, you’ll be getting so much done that it’ll be worth it! Plus complaining takes a lot of time and OH MY GOD LOOK AT HOW MUCH TIME I JUST WASTED COMPLAINING.
The Adelpheans 