As summer drew to a close, I found my attention being drawn away from my newly begun blog. Between the edits for my manuscript, moving into my off-campus housing, and preparing for the beginning of another college semester, blogging fell by the wayside.
And yet I had promised to become a true blog presence. For heaven’s sake, my first post is titled “Committing to the (Blog) Job!”
I failed to follow up on my promise, and I tried explain away why I had not posted for some time. So my reasoning behind not blogging must be considered an excuse. The lecturer for one of my classes this semester introduced the quote, “Excuses are the bricks that build the house of failure.” As much as I hate to admit it, she’s right. If I had continued to come up with excuses for why I couldn’t post, this blog would have been pointless. I probably would have never added another article.
And yet, here I am. I am once again typing away on my laptop. I will admit, as I write, it is quite late, but that is what it takes. You have to find time to complete your tasks, even if you have to borrow time. As a college student, I have classes, work, a social life, and – until this year – 5:30AM practice with the OSU rowing team six days per week. Where in the world can I find time to fit in a consistent blogging lifestyle?
I borrow time.
Some days I have to stay up a little later, borrowing some time from sleeping. Other days, going out with my friends can wait an extra half hour in order to complete my next post. There are minutes wasted in the day when I’m sitting idly on Facebook or Twitter. If I take those minutes to do something more productive, suddenly I’ve accomplished something I didn’t think I could.
Borrowing time is easier said than done, unfortunately. Yes, there is a large amount of time wasted on the Internet, but how many of us really want to give up our social media? And then of course, there is the ever-faithful couch or bed. Sure, I could write a post, but a nap sounds so much better. Why would I borrow time from these other activities that seem so important?
So my final piece of advice when it comes to avoiding excuses and getting things done is to make deadlines for yourself. Don’t pick a random date, because that’s all it is: random. Can’t you make another excuse to push the date back a little?
Chose a date that has some significance. When I graduated high school, I realized that I had been working on my novel manuscript for five years, and had barely made a dent in it. So I set a deadline at the end of the summer. I knew that if I did not finish my book before I began college, I’d never find the time to properly finish writing. I started with 30 type-written pages in July of the year. I finished with 185 pages before I left for college in August.
We all know how intimidating a good deadline is, and we all know how quickly everything moves out of the way to meet that deadline. So make a good, hard deadline for yourself. You’ll start borrowing time from places you didn’t know existed. And above all else, you’ll be avoiding those excuses.
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