Yo Work Fun Nation!

Today we’re actually at the Manila International Book Fair at my wife’s book signing event, (she has two children’s books published with Adarna) so I won’t have time to really sit down and think, and write. 

Marami silang artists and authors doing book signings but scheduled si wifey today. (Jeannelle on the brochure)

Pero, since several people actually replied to my email yesterday..

"Time is so fast and kulang siya talaga in a day to do everything I have to do. 

Buti nalang po nabasa ko 'to. Thanks for your perspective, CoaSh."

"Love this, Coach Shods. I bring my laptop everywhere I went rin or I use my phone to work in case may free time kahit 10 minutes lang then may idea agad na lumabas. I'm a copywriter/email marketer so pwede sa phone mag work. "

Na-excite ako to share more about the book, but since wala ako time today ito na muna guys. Mag-copy paste muna ako ng blurb from the book. Hopefully you get value out of it like it did for me.

Again this might not be for everyone, so pakiramdaman mo muna if this is aligned with who you are as a person and what your normal habits are.

If you’ve been trying so many different things and wala pa nag-work, who knows baka ito na yun. 

A short excerpt from Someday is Today by Matthew Dicks:

I’ve written eleven books and published nine over the past dozen years because I don’t wait for the right moment to write. I don’t waste time on preciousness, pretentiousness, and perfection.

Yes, it’s true that in the summers, when I’m not teaching, I have much more time to dedicate to writing, but I don’t wait for July and August to get to work. I write all year long. I write in the early- morning hours before my kids tumble down the stairs. I write at lunchtime if I don’t have any papers to correct or lessons to plan.

I’m actually writing this very sentence on a Friday during my lunch break. I write while waiting for the water to boil for spaghetti. I write while the mechanic changes my oil at Jiffy Lube. I write in the first few minutes of a meeting that has failed to start on time.

Are these ideal times to write? Of course not. But unless you’re blessed with a patron who is willing to support your every earthly desire, you need to make the time to write. Even if blessed with a patron, I still might be writing in these cracks of my life. I’m filled with stories and the desire to share as many of them with the world as possible. Why restrict my creative flow to midmornings? Minutes matter. Every single one of them matters.

The problem is that so many of us discount the value of minutes and overestimate the value of an hour or a day or a weekend. We dither away our minutes as if they were useless, assuming that creativity can only happen in increments of an hour or a day or more. What a bunch of hooey.

The one commodity that we all share in equal amounts is time: 1,440 minutes — 86,400 seconds — per day.

I want you to stop thinking about the length of a day in terms of hours and start thinking in terms of minutes. Minutes matter.

People making things — entrepreneurs, artists, writers, musicians, comedians, sculptors, furniture crafters, potters, knitters, gardeners, video-game designers, YouTube creators, and podcasters — must utilize these minutes more effectively because unless you have a patron or a trust fund, you’ll probably need to carve out time among life’s many other demands in order to pursue your creative passions.

At least for a while.

Most creative people are holding down another job (or two or three) while waiting for their passions to pay off. The tragedy is that creative people (and people who dream of being creative) often use their time less effectively than most, and more often than not, they spend their lives waiting for the right moment instead of making the time.

The trick is to utilize your time effectively. To value every minute of the day equally, regardless of how many other minutes are attached to it. Once you have chosen to value every minute, you can begin to create systems by which those precious minutes can be used.

Ayown, end excerpt.

The biggest value I got there is that minutes matter. So many things to unpack, but yan na talaga pinaka-heart of the message. This kind of thinking can totally help us as freelancers, as we all have this thing called life to deal with outside of our freelancing business.

Minutes add up. Even small increments of time spent on tasks can add up over days and weeks. Being aware of how minutes are spent helps us become more productive.

Speaking of minutes, I’m actually writing this a few minutes before we leave the hotel sa tabi ng SMX, where the event is. Sakto natapos ko tong email within 15+ minutes, buti na lang copy paste lang hehe.

If ever you’re in the area and you happen to be at the Manila Internation Book Fair (MIBF) 2023, say hi!

3PM book-signing nya, but nasa palagid lang ako nyan. 

Happy Sunday,

Shoden “Minutes Matter” San

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