dream | act | succeed

With my “free time” coming to an end, I guess reality will catch up with me pretty soon on Tuesday morning, when I am finally back in the world of the “working people“. Since October last year I was studying full time, meaning that I was my own boss, so to speak. Sure, it could have been worse. But honestly, I pretty much enjoyed the concept of planning my days on my own and simply have a lot of time to spend. The only thing was the lack of money which I did not earn, but well, that’s life sometimes.

A NEW CHAPTER

With the end of all the lectures and stuff for university, I will write my master thesis until the end of February full time at a company. Meaning that I will finally earn a bit of money again, yay!

But well, where is the big deal? The big deal might just be the fact that I can’t continue my daily writing rhythm I have been using for pretty much the last 11 month. With having a job, there comes a responsibility. Having already worked while writing this blog project early on in the first couple of month, I simply know that I can’t get up in the morning and write my blog freely before going to work. My thoughts will be blocked and constantly drifting away, I will feel the time pressure and the feeling that I am not working fast enough. Does it make fun to write under such circumstances? I don’t think so! Therefore, I need to change something starting from Tuesday on.

What are my options?

Well, believe it or not, but there are even multiple solutions possible. In the following I want to present the two most promising.

THE AFTERNOON WRITER

This solution represents the way I have been writing my blog at the early beginning. I would get up early in the morning, start to work at 6 am and leave work early. At around 3 or 4 pm. Then I would go home, eat something and get to work writing my daily blog.

+ No time pressure
+ I can react to comments
+ My mind will be free

– Most of my readers read my blog in the morning
– My brain will pretty much be exhausted directly after work

THE AUTOMATIC PUBLISHER

The next solution I can imagine is something I haven’t tried so far. Using the “autopilot” for the blog post publishing process and set a date and time. For example Tuesday at 10 am. Then I can work the hell out of my brain at work while the post is getting published automatically.

+ Readers get the blog post right in time
+ I don’t have the pressure to write the blog directly after work

– Blog needs to be finished at a certain point at least one day before
– I can’t react to comments, questions, problems
– I can’t correct mistakes instantly

But wait a second! What if you will be able to work in the home office? What if the COVID19 will strike back for the second time? Well, I guess, I don’t know about stuff like that yet. But nevertheless I need to prepare myself. I need to consider my options and have a strategy ready once the situation occurs.

Sure, someone might just say:

Where is the big deal? Just write some blog posts ahead of time and in the “worst case” situation publish them. Next week you will probably know more about your new working rhythm and stuff.

Sounds in fact like a good idea. Having some blog posts already pretty much finished for going online is always a good feeling. It gives you a sense of security and safety. A feeling of being more free and self-sufficient in your day to day planning.

But anyways, how will I proceed?

Having finished todays blog post by now already, I can easily do tomorrows weekly statistic as well. In fact, this is always a great feeling to have at least one day of the week where you simply know the exact time you will need for writing this post already. Therefore, I will use the automatic publishing function today for the first time and see how that is working. I wouldn’t recommend to use anything without testing “when it matters“. Like being in a race, or being at work for the first time and figuring out that you blog is not getting published. And on Monday I will have a lot of time to write at least two blog posts which will pretty much get me through the whole work week, mentally and literally.

But sure, I guess I need to be able to handle this “pressure” or “need” to publish something every single day by now in a much better fashion. I mean, come on! I have improved quite a lot! I don’t need that much time any longer and in fact have the feeling that I can use by far more of what I write. In the early beginning, I guess I used around 1/4 of everything I wrote, these days, I sometimes write the thing in less than an hour easily with only deleting 1/4. Quite an improvement, if you would ask me!

And to be honest with you, I am simply afraid about the fact that the quality of my blog posts might suffer due to the time commitment I have made to be back at a company again. But sure, looking at my life so far, I don’t think that this is a huge problem. In fact, it might even help me to get even better in what I am doing. The last weeks indicated clearly that having too much time is not the best option either. The value of “having” time gets reduced significantly and you may lose a sense for actually using it wisely.

As always in life, there are a lot of new challenges waiting around the next corner. But if we can keep a cool head and stay in control, what should we be afraid of?

I will give you an update about how it went!

See you next time!