Up until I launched Balsic Media, my time had often gone to waste. After all, thinking about potential creative endeavors takes up a considerably smaller amount of time than actually creating. As such, for nearly seven years, I’ve had a sizable amount of free time to rest, exercise, read, etc. Really too much time.
Now that I have an actual obligation to create, it seems there is not enough time, and this is rather frustrating. I’ve already had to push back the release of Red Admiral and my Autobiography because I simply did not have the time, while also running the website and the YouTube channel, to finish these projects by the original deadline.
I’ve always liked to think of time as water, and what we allocate that time to as the buckets that hold it. For example, in a day there are 24 hours; ipso facto, there are 24 gallons of water to allocate.
On days I work, 9 gallons are allocated to the work bucket. I average about 6 hours of sleep a night, so 6 gallons are allocated to the sleep bucket, leaving me with 9 remaining gallons. But I have to take care of general hygiene, take my dog out, eat, clean, use the restroom, etc. These things, on average, take up about three and a half hours of my day. Now I’m left with 5.5 gallons.
Where I used to spend an hour and a half a day on general wellness and health, since launching the company, this has lowered to thirty minutes by way of two fifteen-minute yoga sessions.
I also am in a long-term relationship with my beautiful girlfriend, who requires three to four hours of my attention minimum per day. This leaves me with 1–2 hours on a regular workday to work on creative projects, funneled through Balsic Media. This is where the first key problem lies.
This is simply not enough time to run a multimedia empire. I’ve learned a few key tricks to use time as efficiently as possible, though the model is downright not sustainable, and I’m not quite sure what to do about this.
The more I continue with Balsic Media, the more and more I realize how important it is for me to express this side of myself after a decade of repression. However, what should I prioritize? How can I get more time?
The second issue I’m running into involves my aforementioned long-term girlfriend. Referencing the bucket analogy once again, she does not see my time as divided into a series of complex buckets, all equally contributing to my wellness. She views my time as limited to two buckets… one for time spent with her and one for time not spent with her. And any time in the former bucket is time that could have been better spent in the latter.
I should mention the time requested of me often includes favors, tasks, errands, and other requests. Usually completely unnecessary and unimportant to me, but important to the one I love, so I comply happily. But even within these tasks, the ensuing time allotted appears to be filed into the “time not spent with her” bucket.
Subsequently, the abbreviated allocation of time does not seem to be enough. In fact, nothing I do seems to be enough. I truly love her; however, my time can simply not be stretched further if I’d like to eventually make a long-term career out of this company. She does not seem too keen on the idea of Balsic Media and the broader vision, in fact, outright refusing to support it at times, which I entirely understand, as for the first two and a half years of our relationship, I had a lot more time available, and this silly project I’m working on has taken from that.
It reminds me a lot of a proverb I once read, in which a king who inherited an impoverished and starving kingdom began offering his citizens three free meals a day, and the citizens rejoiced, praising the king. This continued for several years until the three provided meals became commonplace and the starvation of the people became a distant memory.
However, when the kingdom was attacked and involved in a consequent war to defend its citizens, more funds had to be earmarked to the military, resulting in the king announcing a cut to the socialized meal program, now only offering three loaves of bread a day.
As a result, the citizens revolted, now despising their once-praised monarch. See, the three full meals became not a privilege but a commonality in these people’s lives. Something they expected, not something to be grateful for. And when this was reduced, even for what ultimately was temporary and for the greater good, the people saw it as something being taken away from them, as opposed to something being given to them.
But I don’t know, man. I’m kind of an idiot. Maybe I should just stop this whole Balsic Media thing. It’s kind of a lot.
