I’m running out of time, and there’s a deadline. The problem isn’t that I don’t know what to write. I do. The problem is that the hours I normally use to do the work aren’t mine anymore.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

The Clock Is Running

The deadline itself isn’t the point here. It’s more about what the deadline does to the work. 

I’m sitting in a situation a lot of working creators actually face. Nothing new here. The due date doesn’t care whether ideas have arrived. Only that the project shows up on the desk.

The deadline remains. For whatever reason, the available time has unexpectedly shrunk. Now what?

The Requisites

A post requires a thought process, research, mental articulation, bouncing ideas off collaborators, and time to sit down and write. Not every post requires every one of those things. And even when the writing is finished, I still have to format it. 

Part of how the work takes shape comes from writing for myself. That’s why I don’t run out of ideas, because my brain is constantly moving and bouncing things around.

Idea supply and production capacity are two different things altogether. 

I almost never run out of things to say. I constantly blather to myself when no one else is around. But it takes time to turn what I am already thinking into something meaningfully worthy.

The List

Incubation is key. My first formulations are rarely acceptable. An idea sits around, gets challenged, collides with something else, and changes shape. That’s different from research and different from writing.

Rejection is also part of my DNA. I generate plenty of concepts, but discard many because they don’t resonate. That’s productive, but it leads to a lot of dead ends.

Then I have to test the argument. It’s not enough to merely ask, ‘Is this interesting?’ The premise has to be attacked. Is it true? Is it redundant? Has this been written elsewhere in the post? Is there actually an argument here?

And a general subject usually isn’t enough. Where am I entering the environment? My studio, music, or experience? Otis ( my favorite ), the job, my book, something I have taken a hard look at?

I spend a ton of time removing language that doesn’t sound like a conversation. Sometimes the underlying thought is fine, but the wording gets rejected anyway. That’s a real-time production cost.

Then there’s knowing when enough is enough. I am increasingly unwilling to keep empty words just to make an algorithm happy.

No matter how the work comes together, it still takes time.

Then what happens when the work needs more time than I have?

Resentment

The first response to running short on time is resentment. Those hours were supposed to be mine.

I have been writing a new book. Now I’m pissed off. That work needs time to sit with ideas, tear them apart, and come back later. These new constraints have taken much of that time from me. Time I expected to spend on the book now belongs somewhere else.

And the book isn’t the only reason for the resentment. I had other plans for those hours. Some of them were nothing more complicated than having time that belonged to me. The part I hate the most? The personal relationships I have had to sacrifice. 

The challenge is that resentment doesn’t give any of them back.

The work in front of me usually takes longer than the time I currently have. Something has to give. What is it going to be?

The deadline won’t change. The lost hours aren’t coming back. And resenting the situation won’t create more time. There is no point in arguing with the facts. The buffer is gone.

Changing The Question

Now take that resentment and focus it into gratefulness.

The point is the time constraints. I’m not used to this, especially being on such a short leash. So maybe I can be grateful for the time that I have to produce something meaningful?

Earlier today, I read something guitarist Andy Carhart wrote that reshaped my resentment. Speaking about the loss of his father, Andy wrote, “Some of you know we lost my Dad just before Christmas, and in my grief, I’m reminded again that each day we can share the things we love with the people we love is an absolute blessing. We never know how much time we have.“

Pause.

I had been looking at the hours gone. Andy reminded me to look at the hours I still had. The deadline hadn’t changed. Neither had the amount of work in front of me. What changed was my resentment toward the time I had been given.

Gratitude changes the question from ‘Why don’t I have more time?’ to ‘This is the time I have. I’m grateful for it. Now what can I make before the deadline?’

I Am The Research

That question brought me back to something I’d noted before. I once read that all writing is autobiographical. My immediate objection was David McCullough. How could someone who spent his life writing about John Adams, Harry Truman, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Wright brothers be writing autobiographically?

Then I turned the question around. Maybe McCullough’s insatiable appetite for knowledge was the autobiographical part. What fascinated him enough to spend years investigating tells us something about the man doing the investigating.

That thought suddenly became useful.

This post is autobiographical. I am sitting inside the problem that is being written about. There is no need research what it feels like to lose the time I expected to have. I don’t have to investigate resentment over that loss or what happened when gratitude changed my perspective.

I am the research.

And one part of my normal process disappears.

The Deadline Is A Commitment

Let’s go back to living my life by what Seth Godin teaches, shares, and writes about. The deadline is everything. 

He doesn’t make it a slogan. He makes it a habit and a commitment. And that’s what I’m committing to. 

Seth Godin, *Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?* — Penguin Random House

The 2011 Portfolio paperback edition, ISBN 9781591844099.

I don’t honor the deadline only when circumstances cooperate.

The deadline means the date I set because it is the date I set.

And it matters because of the commitment.

Can I make something meaningful with less time and still keep my promise to myself?

Is it possible the answer to a tight deadline isn’t necessarily to do everything faster?

The Experiment

Here’s the kicker: the post I’m struggling to find time to write is about struggling to find time to write. That was the answer. 

This very article may become the evidence for its own argument.

Can meaningful work actually be produced this way?

I’m conducting the experiment right now.

If the deadline arrives with a worthwhile post, the piece won’t merely argue its point. Its existence will be part of the evidence.

This is  a real-time account of practicing something I claim to believe when conditions are not convenient.

How much time does good work actually take, and how much time do we just assume it requires?

I started this post resenting the time I had lost.

What changed was what I expected to do with what remained. Gratitude got me out of the argument with the clock. Looking at my own process showed me what this particular piece didn’t need. I didn’t need to research an experience I was already living. I was the research.

And I didn’t need to do everything faster. I needed to decide what the work actually required.

The deadline stayed where it was.

So did I.

I kept writing. 

Can We Help You?

What do you cut when there isn’t enough time to do the work the way you normally do it?

I’m grateful you spent some of your time here with me. Time has become particularly valuable around here lately.

If something in this post hit home, share it with someone wrestling with the same problem. Tell me in the comments what you do when the hours disappear, and subscribe to Mack-n-Cheeze Music if you want to keep the conversation going.

There is always more ground to cover.

Continue The Journey

Because sometimes the wisest person in the studio has four paws.

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