Writing, Guitar Playing and getting organized

I'm happy.

I'll tell you why.

I've recently started writing full steam again, it's the first time I've done so in a very long time. I stopped because it was hard for me to find time to do it, or that's what I told myself. Like I've already mentioned in the previous post, I'm a stay at home dad (which is quite literally the best job in the world because I get to spend all of my time with my son, at home, or wherever our adventures take us), and being a stay at home dad, or just a parent, means there's a little someone who is going to depend on you. Need to eat, have their diaper changed, be entertained, be changed again, fed again, loved and cuddled, have the random objects that have been teleported into their little mouths removed so they don't choke, along a billion other things.

In other words, they take up a lot of time and it's spread out through the entire day. I never really seemed to have time to write, at least, not really enough of it to have a good writing session. I used this, along with lots of other things, as an excuse to not write.

But I've stopped making excuses and as luck would have it, my son is now napping once a day for about three hours.

It is awesome!

I started to use nap time to write and meet the daily word count goal I set for myself at the beginning of the year.

I also did something else that helped, I sat down and wrote out a sort of schedule. I took the hours of the day and counted out how much time I was using productively to get things done. I looked at the hours my son is generally awake and those he spends asleep. I looked at how many hours I use up sleeping, how much I actually needed and thenlooked at the list of daily goals that sometimes make me feel overwhelmed. I estimated about how much time I would need for each item on the list. I compared all of it and found I had time, I just had to stop wasting it on other things and make a little more.

So I cut off everything from myself until I had my daily word count done. No TV, no Facebook, Twitter or internet in general (in fact, I actually cut a lot of it out and set goals for myself to be "present when I'm present" or in other words, not be sucked into my phone while I'm with others. I'm doing better, but still working on it) I also figured if I cut a little sleep out, I could use that extra time in the morning to help get things done.

It worked.

I woke up at 6:30 the other day and sat down and wrote. I wrote over 2,800 words. Some might look at that and scoff but I felt amazed and very proud of myself. That's over my daily word count goal and I did it all before my son woke up for the day. That left me the whole rest of the day to do a lot of other things.

I went running two miles..

Okay, jogging...

Okay, okay, I mostly just walked, but hey, I got out! My son and I actually went outside and walked around and played in the sun.

I cleaned things.

Unbelievable, I know.

I used those three hours of naptime to do other things, like look up some markets for my short stories and look into some at home work opportunities.

I did a lot that day.

Sadly, I only did it once this last week. I am not a morning person.

I repeat.

I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON.

I'm hoping to change that because I used to be and I find that the days I do wake up early, not only do I get a lot done, but I also feel better, healthier and happier.

Another thing I'm really happy about.

I started playing my guitar again!

It feels so good to play music.

I'm rusty, but I'm picking back up on it pretty quick. (Though my hand is not used to playing bar chords anymore. Ouch...). For me, playing the guitar is immensely therapeutic and helps me relieve A LOT of stress in a very healthy way. It's relaxing to just sit down and pluck at the strings and listen.

I'm currently reminding myself how to play an acoustic version of Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls, while also learning Amanda Palmer's The Bed Song and Of Monsters and Men's Dirty Paws. They're all a lot of fun to play.

I'm seriously considering offering guitar lessons, I thought about it once before, but never did anything more than that. I'm currently looking into it, how I would go about it and what I have to offer. I would be mostly for beginners and intermediate players.

I'll post more on that soon.

SO...

What do you do to help you with your goals?
What things do you enjoy that help you relax and relieve stress?

I'm off. It'll be bedtime soon if I plan on getting up to write. Take care. Be seeing you soon.