Believing and practicing Catholics have something that many Lithuanian freelancers lack. Or rather, they have what is lacking in general for many Lithuanian residents.
This one thing will help you find time for your hobbies, your small businesses... to try them out, to use them, to experience them and finally to earn them.
What kind of tool is it?
These are rituals.
"What rituals do you have in mind?"
Of course, I am not talking about sacrifices of lambs. And I'm not talking about embracing the idea of God. And not about dancing in the rain of euros. (Where you dance with an empty wallet in your hand. Probably?)
Lithuanian Catholics have many rituals. There are daily prayers, weekly (at least) church attendance, confession every once in a while, N+Y feast days and celebrations throughout the year...
And why have you relegated your hobby to "Ai, when will inspiration strike?" level?
Lithuanian Olympian, javelin throw champion Inga Stasiulionytė, repeats, repeats, repeats, that the best athletes train rhythmically, on schedule, and don't stop.
And yes! It's hard! It's hard to give at least 30 minutes every day... One day is fine. But eight... ten days in a row? Hmm...
But the fact is that you have to do it. You need a ritual.
But in a salaried job, you go to work every day, according to a schedule, and your company is likely to make a profit? Isn't it? And if you exercise, are you already seeing your muscles grow? Are you not?
"What might my ritual look like?"
Let me just share one article. It is not my article and the ideas in it are not perfect (especially the question of whether it is really worth getting up very early in the morning).
Morning rituals: 2 amazing hours for yourself and your personal project every day
The author of this article, Martynas Jocius, is a musician. He makes quite unique eco-electronic music. He is also a programmer and develops projects like Tipihub. He also writes a blog, which you'll be visiting in no time at all... And he also finds time for reading, for his wife, and for relaxing in nature.
Rituals help him.
Martynas has tomorrow rituals - they are likely to perform a pre-planned sequence of tasks in the morning. But that doesn't mean you have to get up earlier now!
However, many people go to bed late and get up even later - even at 10 or 11am. Is this bad? Sleep research shows that the time you go to bed doesn't make a difference - it's the environment you sleep in that matters.
So you can create rituals at any time of the day.
- For example, you can take 5 minutes on your lunch break at work to use Google Primer to learn skills that are important for your personal or business life.
- Can be turned on for five minutes on your earpiece when you get home Audioteka.lt or Audible.com book (like my "Sloth Manifesto") and, little by little, read a book... Or thirty.
- Talking about books - how do I read 75+ books a year? I read during my morning 6 minutes. Those ten pages a day add up to 3,650 pages a year, which is at least fourteen books!
- Where and when else can you? You can write your last emails to customers in bed before bed, check out your competitors' ads. Although I wouldn't recommend it - it's better to sleep and make love in bed.
- You can quickly send out sales offers to potential customers after breakfast, in the morning. It will be at least a day before they reply. Add the ritual of replying and coordinating details in the evening, and congratulations - you've magically done the job you'd normally put off!
- While the soup is simmering for dinner, you can post sales messages on Facebook groups. Or record another content marketing video. You can record one of these videos while you're walking, driving, riding... Even on the bus, so.
- If you wake up at night and don't go back to sleep, it's a great time to use it for creative work. Especially given that it's perfectly normal to wake up in the middle of the night.
Are…
Well, I don't know what your life is like or what you do. But it's just a fact that (you, too) can make time in your day for the ritual of work.
Whatever ritual you have, it will help you to empathise with your work, help you to pour out unorganised ideas, help you to learn, help you to accelerate your sales, and... Whatever it is you want to do.
Work rituals are your decisionif you want to make money from your hobby but are currently employed or just extremely busy.
(Remember: We are all extremely busy. And we all have the same number of hours. The difference is what we give our attention to.)
So, what kind of ritual will you create?
Full of rituals,
Daniel