Why You Don’t Have Time to Create (and What to Do About It)

Season 2, Episode 9

In this episode, we’re kicking off the Creative Constraints series by tackling the most common barrier of all: time.

If you’ve ever said, “I just don’t have time to create,” you’re not wrong. Time is limited, layered and often already spoken for. Between work, family, health and everyday responsibilities, creativity is usually the first thing to get pushed aside.

But this episode isn’t about pretending we all have the same 24 hours. It’s about working with the time you actually have.

Join me as I break down why time feels so scarce, how your current season of life shapes what’s possible, and how to stay connected to your creativity even when your schedule feels full. 

Transcript

Speaker 0:14

Welcome back to your next chapter, the podcast for women who read, write, and live creatively. I'm your host, Rebecca Hasu lak. And today we are kicking off a new series for April. The series is all about constraints. And I know that might sound like something that isn't a barrel of monkeys, but let me tell you, it is important. And as creatives, we all face different obstacles from time to time. So for this month, every week we are going to address a common obstacle to creativity, whether you're pursuing your creativity as a hobby or as a career, what gets in the way and what you can actually do about it. So today, the first constraint is time. So let's dig in. Time is not just limited, it's layered, it's competing, and it's often already spoken for. It is one of the truly finite resources. No matter how much money you have in the world, no matter your position or anything like that, time is something that we all have in a limited capacity. So I will say that when I've spoken with fellow creatives or even when I tell people about my own novel writing, one of the first things that someone will say in response is, wow, how do you have time to write a novel? And that's a fair question. It makes a lot of sense why people would wonder because something like writing a novel or other forms of art take an immense amount of time. And I will be honest with you that time is also the most common reason that people give for not creating. So someone might say to me, Oh, I've always wanted to write a book too, but I just can't possibly find the time. I've heard that. And I hear that with people across all sorts of the arts. And it's often true. It's not a cop-out. It's not something that people say because they just don't want to get their hands dirty. I mean, at least not most of the time. It's just true. It's not about pretending that we all have equal time because the fact is we don't. One of my least favorite things that I've seen making the rounds on the internet or seen as a meme, or, you know, it's usually when someone's trying to prove how much they get done in a given day and they'll be like, we all have the same 24 hours. Technically, each day that each of us lives through does consist of 24 hours, but those 24 hours are not at all equal person to person. So much of how you can spend that time depends on your life circumstances. Even me recording this podcast right now, you guys, I love it. I'm so thankful to have this opportunity. And a big reason that I'm sitting here recording this podcast at 9.39 a.m. is because I have a flexible job where my deliverables are what matter and not the actual time I clock in and clock out. If I were a nine to fiver, I would not be able to be recording a podcast that's a passion project during the workday, right? So let's just be honest about it. Our time is not equal, even if we technically have the same amount of available hours. So understanding that it's important to dig into where your time is actually going, what's possible in your current season, and how you can create within those constraints. The first thing I want to tackle is what a typical week looks like for the average person. And of course, I'm using the term average loosely because what even is average right now? I haven't surveyed the masses. So this is just based on my own understanding of what most people have going on in their lives. Most people are working. Most people have full-time jobs, 40 plus hours a week. A lot of them are parents or andor caregivers. Most of them, whether you're a parent, a caregiver, or just a single person, have household responsibilities, which I think a lot of us underestimate how much time those household responsibilities actually take. Additionally, most of us, if not all, are trying to maintain a level of health that requires time investments. So when you're trying to do all those things, you know, you only have those available hours. And I kind of think of it a little bit as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The very foundation are the physiological needs, then safety, then love and belonging, then esteem. And at the top is self-actualization. So if we look at our lives like that, our physiological needs, well, what helps us provide for our physiological needs? It's our income, right? It's the ability to have shelter, to have food, to have clean water. So of course, we have to first make sure that our jobs and our income are taken care of. In addition, our health is a huge part of our physiological needs. We have to invest in exercise, in eating well, and caring for our bodies. So those two are really foundational. And that's why most people will put those first. Then, of course, love and belonging, it's two tiers up on the Maslow ladder, but it's so important. And so we want to spend time with friends, with family, with our kids. And we know, especially those of us who are parents, that childhood is fleeting and we want to make sure we're really available to our kids. So yes, I could be creating at the time my daughter has a dance performance or my son has a basketball game, but I'm not gonna do that because I want to be able to be there for them. And so that is going to take priority. And if you keep looking at everything else, you know, our household responsibilities, I mean, I don't know, we could kind of tie that into safety, which is just one rung up from physiological needs, but it kind of is because you can't live in a slovenly house with dirty dishes and mess and stuff all around you and expect to stay healthy and safe. So that is also very important. And then of course, caregiving and parenting, those are responsibilities that are just so important and things that are usually for a season and they require a lot of us and they require a lot of our time. Because also when you're doing those things, you're providing for other people's physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging. So when you look at it that way, of course, we have very little time left over. And so that's usually the time that the creativity gets. You know, I'd love to paint, but when am I supposed to paint if I'm caring for an elderly parent, taking my kids to school, working a full-time job, and trying to stay ahead of the housework? It can sometimes feel like a very impossible puzzle. So it's no wonder that time is the most often cited blocker to creativity and creative pursuits. At the same time, it's important that we recognize this is not a discipline problem. As I've just discussed, this is how we have to prioritize in order to live as humans and take care of the people we need to take care of, including ourselves. What it comes down to is a capacity and prioritization and season of life reality. So let's shift the mindset. Instead of, I don't have time, try this. What kind of time do I have right now? Because there are different kinds of time. There's focus time, which would be kind of those longer stretches, the kind I'd prefer if I'm going to be writing novels. I need at least a couple of hours of just uninterrupted deep work. And that's what's required for me to get to that level of creating. So focus time, but that's the time that is often hardest for a lot of us to access. There's also fragmented time. You know, I will sometimes pop up in my computer if I'm waiting at the gas station for my car to go through the car wash and I'll try to write for 15 minutes. It's not as useful. I don't usually get into a flow state, but I could still get something done. There can be a little bit of creating happening there. And then there's also mental space versus physical time. Even if you have a physical time, if you have all these other things competing for your attention and your time, it's going to make it so much harder for you to mentally focus during the time that you do have. So it's not just a matter of, oh, do I have 10 minutes free? Do I have two hours free? It's also a matter of what's going on internally and are you able to fully show up for that creativity in that time that you've made available. So here are some actionable strategies. I want to get tactical in this series. Really love to zoom out and look at creativity and arts and everything like this, like from a big macro level and wax poetic about it and kind of get a little philosophical, but I want to get very actionable with you today because I want this to be useful. So here are some strategies that I have found to work and I hope will help you. Number one is time blocking, but make it flexible. I like time blocking a lot. I will tell you, I am not, let's say, an avid time blocker. I'm not someone who lives and dies by my time blocks. But every time I have started to feel incredibly overwhelmed by everything I need to do and want to do, I have gone to time blocking, just a week at a time. And it's usually not the same week to week, but I tend to know what works for me. So I might say after school drop-off, 9 to 11, then 11 to 12, workout, 12 to 12:30, shower, 12:30 to 2:30, client work. You know, that's just an example. And of course, I don't just do two hours of client work in a given day. But usually I will have time later when I'm sitting at the dance studio where I can do more client work or things like that. So you have to kind of know what works for you, but time blocking can really help because you're putting your creativity into a designated area in a given week. And maybe it's only one day. But let's say that you have a time you're going to be in between appointments. You have a work meeting in the morning and you have a work call three hours later. There's an in-between time that's kind of like you're not really sure what to do with. That could be a time for creation. It could be two hours where you sit down and give yourself the freedom to do your art, whatever that looks like for you. And so that might change too. The point with time blocking is to give your creativity a place to live in your week, but don't feel like it has to be rigid scheduling. And it's okay to change it. If you have to swap blocks around, if something for work becomes more pressing and you have to put your creativity later, you know, be willing to roll with the punches. But time blocking can be super helpful. Also, just identifying those blocks for workouts and things like that, it can really help you to become more consistent in following through on your commitments to yourself. Even two to three blocks a week for creativity is a meaningful amount of time. And you might be surprised at how far you get with your own goals if you just make that part of your schedule. Number two, find your time leaks. Just like with a budget, and when you review your bank statements, it can be shocking to find out how five dollars here for coffee, eight dollars there for a subscription, things like that just drain your account faster than you would imagine because there's so many of them and they're recurring. And this is so similar to time. There are so many people I hear who say, Well, I just don't have time. I don't have time. And then I see some of the ways they do spend their time and I'm I get a little curious. I'm sort of like, Do you really not have time? Because what I see is that you are choosing to spend your time in a certain way. For instance, maybe someone goes to the gym for two hours but says they don't have time to play their music. So I'm I love health. Health is enormously important. So if you need to go to the gym for two hours, of course, you do it. That's your prerogative and that's making your health a priority. But there are some people who kind of treat the gym like social hour, right? They're going around, they're fist bumping, they're like chatting people up. It's not all exercise. If you really looked at that and you're like, hey, maybe I can actually just focus on the workout part, which for me might be an hour, and then I'll have that extra hour in which I can actually devote to my music. Obviously, this gets a little tricky because some of these things are important. You don't want to say every time you're chatting with someone, it's a waste because relationships are important. So it's not about that or about trying to just make your life militant so that every minute is accounted for. And if it's not, then you're creating. That doesn't really work that well. What it's really about is trying to figure out where your time is slipping by and just track a day or two, honestly. Carry around a little notebook, use your notes app, something like that. Kind of think like a lawyer for a couple of days. I think I've heard that they bill in six-minute increments, which is so crazy. I can't imagine doing that. But in any event, look, look hour by hour or even 30 minutes by 30 minutes, and just jot it down for two days. And you might find, wow, I spent 40 minutes scrolling social media. That's a huge culprit, you guys. I know we all like to talk about it and act like we're very aware of how we spend our time online, but the danger of it is that a lot of time we don't have awareness and it just sucks us in. And we don't realize it until after the fact. And sometimes it's hard to be honest about because we know a lot of the time it's kind of a waste of time. Yes, there's connection on there, yes, there's promotion on there, yes, there are things that you can use in a constructive way, but spending hours and hours that you could use doing something else, something more meaningful, is a waste. So pay attention to your social media, pay attention to your TV habit. How much time are you spending watching TV, binging Netflix? What about unintentional downtime? Downtime is so important. I want everybody to read, I want everyone to relax, I want you to do self-care. But are you sort of getting in a slump where you're justifying long periods of doing nothing just because, oh, I work hard? Like at a certain point, okay, do you need all of that time? Or can you put some of that towards something that will also help you decompress but further your goals like creativity? Also, excessive in-between moments. See how your day is planned. This is why time blocking is so important because there are scraps of time throughout the day that we often kind of while away because we're not intentional. Once you start paying attention, I think you'll start spotting moments that you can actually either cut out or maximize. And I think that's really the goal here is when you're looking for time leaks, you need to ask how much of your time are you spending intentionally versus by default? And just by doing that, you might open yourself up to quite a bit of available time for creativity during the week. All right, number three, once you know what you actually have available, reconsider those available hours. Not all your work has to happen in traditional blocks. Like I mentioned, it can sort of be in the moments that you have. But know your creative peak time and try to hit it. Like if it's if you work best in the morning, try to make that your block. If you work best late at night, try to prioritize that. You know, stack your life and work also in creative ways. I think I've mentioned this before, but as a writer, it's not just the sitting down and tapping the keyboard that is important work. For me, there's a lot that goes on mentally before I can write the story. So, or even while I'm writing the story. For instance, if I go take a 30-minute walk, I bring my phone just for safety reasons, but I love putting it away, not listening to a podcast, even though I love podcasts, obviously, not listening to music, giving myself 30 minutes just to let my brain do its thing. And it does amazing things. Like the brain, when it is not given distractions, will create and will imagine and will work through plot problems or character issues. And it's so cool. And so that's an example of habit stacking. Something that helps your creativity with something that addresses another area of your life that's important, like health. So walking and thinking about my story is a great example. There are other ways to do this. Maybe you really value your social time, but you're realizing, oh my gosh, I spend a lot of time on the phone. Could you, if the people you talk to are local, could you meet up with them and spend an hour exercising with them? And then you you're chatting, but you're also getting your exercise in. Are there ways to kind of condense and just just reconsider exactly how everything is being parsed out? And then number four, I like to talk about deep work. There was a book by Cal Newport called Deep Work, and I will do an entire episode on this at one point, but I love it. It makes so much sense, and it's really about just optimizing the time that you have so that you can really make the most of it. If you carve out an hour for working on your pottery, but every five minutes you're getting a ping on your phone or someone's coming in and asking you for something, your your creativity is being interrupted and you're not going to be anywhere near as productive as you could be if you had really set yourself up for success. So I highly encourage you to read that book. But, you know, if you do have 30 to 60 minutes, protect it. Ask the people in your life to help you. Like if you have a spouse or a partner, tell them, hey, I'm using this 60 minutes for writing. Unless there's an emergency, please don't interrupt me. Tell your kids or go to a physical space where you know interruptions are less likely to happen. Put your phone on do not disturb. I love to do that because that way if there was an emergency or someone needed to reach me, I would be able to be reached, but I'm not going to hear text tones and that sort of thing. So the truth is that 45 minutes of deep focus is so much better than three hours of distracted effort. Even if it seems like you don't have a lot of time, if you can make it deep work, it will just yield so much more than the scattered little moments and distracted moments ever will. The other thing is ask for help, especially as women. I don't know why this is so hard for us. We like to manage it all. We like to not have to ask for help. I am very much like this. I'm very stubborn, very proud of being self-sufficient, but that can kind of cross into just a stubbornness that's so unnecessary and that kind of puts you in a bind. If you need to get more time, maybe you could trade child care with a friend. Maybe you can, again, ask your partner for a protected block of time or ask them to take a meal one night so you can spend that time creating, outsource something small. Maybe you're cleaning your house and you have the funds available to hire someone to do that, even just once a month. That can free up some time for you if you're able to afford that. So the other thing though is with all of this in mind, you might need to reset your expectations. Maybe you can create, but not at the level required to build a business or publish consistently or create something or scale something. That doesn't mean you stop. It just means you need to right-size your expectations to your life. And it's kind of an unpopular opinion, but I'm gonna say it anyway. There are times and seasons when you won't have time to create at all. And that's okay. So I'm gonna tell you a personal story on this front before we wrap up. When my daughter was probably maybe like 15 months old, if I'm remembering correctly, I was working. I had my business, which I still have, my PR business. I had a lot of clients. I was very busy with actual work. I had a 15-month-old. So very busy there. I tried to have child care for her when I needed to work, but other than that, I was caring for her all the time. I took her to a lot of activities. We did a lot of things. And then I got on the idea that I wanted to create a software for public relations companies. I was a very specific type. And I was really excited about it. I still think it would have been a great idea had I completed it. But it was another business idea. And so I started going down these rabbit holes and I decided, well, I can't really pay someone to code this creation for me. I'm gonna learn how to code. So on top of being a mom and running a business and being super busy and not getting a ton of sleep because my daughter wasn't sleeping that great at that point in time, I also started getting up really early and trying to learn how to code of all things. So I sacrificed sleep. And I mean, you can tell where the story is going. I ended up getting sick, and I don't get sick very often, thank God. But I did. And it was just my body being like, hey, this is not the time. Like you have a very small child, you have a business, chill out. Like, realize, like sometimes this is not going to be the time, and that's okay. So I would encourage you to just keep that in mind. Your creativity, even though it's massively important, should never cost you your health, your sanity, your relationships, or your ability to function at the level you need to function. Some seasons are going to be for planting, some are for growing, and some are just for surviving. So you need to know which one you're in. And I would encourage you to go back to the first episode, which is what chapter are you in, where we talk about this a little more. Because when you know your season, you know your chapter, you are able to accept and expect your realities and do so much more with the time than you would otherwise. So I want you to just remember that there are seasons where you're not going to have time to create meaningfully. And it's not about carving out the time because you might just end up depleting yourself and getting sick if you do. Recognize where you are. Don't force creation at all costs. Just try some of the tips I recommended. Stay connected to your creating in whatever way you can and ask yourself this rather than how do I find unlimited time? How do I stay in relationship with my creativity this season? Even if you don't have the time to actively create, you can still stay in relationship with your creativity, whether it's by thinking about it, jotting down ideas, or simply enjoying the fact that you don't have to have any pressure on yourself right now and you can always come back to it later. Your creativity will be there for you. Time will change, seasons will shift, kids will grow, jobs will evolve. And the people who eventually build creative lives didn't always have time. Even now, even if it's their career, they don't always have the right amount of time that they want to have to create, but they stayed connected anyway. And you can too. So I'll close with a quick quote. This one is by J.R.R. Tolkien from The Fellowship of the Ring. And he wrote, All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. So I will leave you with that. I wish you all the time and space to create as you wish and the capacity to know when that isn't possible and to accept it anyway and make the most of the time you have in the most meaningful ways you can. As always. Thank you for joining me. Keep creating and keep turning the page.