How to stop people stealing your time

It’s not just at work that you find yourself led astray. You sort of expect it there. You watch out for it.

Maybe your boss asks you to stay in late to finish that project. Maybe a colleague asks you to help out with some seemingly important task that throws your to-do list off for the day.

But maybe it’s also your friends, your family. The people you love to spend time with, but maybe you spend up spending too much time with.

Whether it’s a holiday or long weekend away, there’s always the risk of other people throwing you off course for a few days. And it takes a few days to get back on it.

They want to do everything together, as you do too. But you’ve got to meditate, to journal, to write that article or record that podcast. They are just in full-on escape-from-work mode. They want to disconnect. Not hear the words ‘productivity’ or ‘creative’. They just aren’t interested.

Which is fine, but you’ve got keep those habits up.

So find yourself a few hours, maybe before everyone is up. Go to a café, do some writing, carve out those 1–2 hours you need to create something. Be focused. Leave it at 1–2 hours. Then go & enjoy your day.

Because, at the end of the day, you’re going to remember the experiences enjoyed with them in 20 years, as opposed to the writing or the meditating or the podcast.

But you can still do both.