Finding Time to Build For Yourself
I don’t want to be the guy who stands on a soapbox giving advice.
Rather, I want to be the person who shares what works and what doesn’t work for me as I figure things out on my own creative path.
Maybe you’ll find something that you should or shouldn’t apply to your own method of madness.
If you’re listening to the show then I’m taking a stab at the fact that you’re like me.
You want to build something, something that’s your own. Something you can be proud of and enjoy doing along the way.
Something you can leave behind for other people to enjoy.
Finding time to build for yourself can be difficult. Especially when you are building something for someone else full time with a day job or have kids and other commitments.
That’s what today’s topic is about as it comes directly from Shane Donaldson aka @Rustic_Overtones who signed up for my newsletter at Perspective-CollectiveTeam.com.
When you sign up you get an onboarding email question asking “What is your biggest struggle when pursuing your creativity?”
I love getting responses to this because it:

lets me know I’m not alone with my certain demons like comparison and doubt.
It lets me see reoccurring patterns and topics that I know will hit home.
allows me to connect and engage directly with people like you.

Shane’s response was, “My biggest struggle is balancing the little time I have with a focus.”
This has been a repeating theme and deserves addressing as I know someone listening deals with the same thing.
To Shane’s credit, he works in IT for the day job but comes home and creates amazing custom wooden cutout lettering. I highly recommend you check out his Instagram at @Rustic_Overtones.
Thanks for this week’s topic Shane. Before I get into the show, if you want to influence the direction of an episode or get my newsletter designed to give you a mid-week creative boost, then join the team atPerspective-CollectiveTeam.com.
Let’s get into the show.
Balancing Your Free Time
If you’re listening to this show, you obviously want to build something for yourself, something on your own terms where you call the shots of what you create.
You want this so badly but maybe the day job or tending to your family makes it hard to find the time, motivation and energy to focus.
Maybe you’re unsure where to start or had little results in the past so you’re hesitant on where or how to invest your time.
I’ll admit, watching cat videos on YouTube or playing video games to escape in is quite tempting. Currently, I’ve been low key binging on Game of Thrones while I draw.
So here’s the question, how do you balance the little time you have with a focus?
By focus, I mean working on your own side project or even your own business.
While I can’t relate to having kids, I would say I’ve become pretty efficient in managing my time outside of the day job and husband duties to focus on Perspective-Collective.
Regardless of your commitments, here are 3 practical things I focus on each day that allows me to build something for myself:

Focus on one thing to execute each day
Plan my day the night before
Kill distractions during work
One Thing Each Day

How often do you give yourself a massive, daunting to-do list of a million things and find yourself unsure where to start?
It’s like giving yourself the assignment to climb Mt. Everest. It’s easy to feel defeated before you start.
For me, I get stressed out and discouraged too easily if I feel I have to take on the world all at once.
Instead, I need to break things up into manageable chunks as it helps to be objective and realistic. This makes the game of building Perspective-Collective winnable and most importantly, enjoyable.
So what is it you’re working towards or trying to build in your rare spare time?
If you have that massive to-do list, what’s one thing on it that you can knock out today to get you started?
Knocking out one thing a day is progress.
Progress is addicting and when you string together a couple days you begi