Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writers’ Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Liza at Middle Passages, JH Moncrieff, and Jemima Pett. Are you a writer? Do you feel insecure? If so, then this is the support group for you. Click here to learn more and to see a list of participating blogs.
Hello, friends! Have you ever heard of an Eisenhower matrix? It’s named after U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who once joked that important problems never seem to be urgent, while seemingly urgent problems never turn out to be important. In an Eisenhower matrix, urgent vs. not urgent and important vs. not important things are arranged in a grid, like this:
Writing has always been important to me. Important, yes, but usually not urgent, and that’s really cost me, because urgent things keep happening in my life, causing me to postpone writing again and again and again. Early last month, yet another urgent problem came up, the kind of urgent problem that genuinely belongs in the urgent and important category. So writing had to wait. Again.
Except, no. No, I couldn’t keep doing that to myself. I couldn’t keep postponing writing over and over to the point that writing never, ever gets done. So my partner and I talked things over and decided that, while we dealt with this very urgent and important problem together, I would also carve at least a few hours out of my schedule to get some writing done. I picked a fairly simple, fairly easy project to work on: a series of blog posts sharing my #1 favorite facts about each planet of the Solar System. If you’re curious, here are links to all the posts I wrote:
- My Favorite Fact About Mercury
- My Favorite Fact About Venus
- My Favorite Fact About Earth
- My Favorite Fact About Mars
- My Favorite Fact About Jupiter
- My Favorite Fact About Saturn
- My Favorite Fact About Uranus
- My Favorite Fact About Neptune
The urgent and important problem was still extremely and extraordinarily stressful for both me and my partner, but we got through it together, and we did it without sacrificing other important (but not necessarily urgent) priorities in our lives, such as my writing.
Thank you, friends, for reading. Whatever urgent things may be happening in your lives right now, I hope you stay true to the things that are truly important to you.
I hope the urgent and important problem is improving. Also hope you continue to find time for things – like writing – that contribute to your energy – and even, joy.
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Thank you, friend! For the most part, the urgent and important problem is behind us now. We just have some cleaning up to do.
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I hope your urgent, time-consuming problem is getter better. I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself and carving out time to write during your challenging time. It’s so important to take care of yourself when you’re going through challenging times in life.
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Sorry for not responding sooner, but… you know, urgent and time-consuming problem.
Anyway, yeah, it is important to take care of yourself and not lose the things that are genuinely important during these times. This whole experience could have been far, far worse for me if I’d let my writing slip away entirely.
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When you really want to, you find a way, even if it’s a big ugly making it happen. Hope you guys made through without the ugly.
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Thanks, friend! We did our best, and things are now settling down again.
Sorry for the super late reply, but obviously life was still getting in the way.
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It’s what we prioritize that gets done. This life will throw more at us than we can handle, making it a question of where we CHOOSE vs what’s needed. I admit, my house doesn’t get cleaned as often as it should, and my cooking can be labeled as lazy. Whatever. Other, important things are getting done.
Good on you for holding the line. Wishing you more calm.
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Thanks! Going forward, I’m hoping to be a little more picky about which “urgent” problems get my attention. Some urgent problems really are important, but a lot of them aren’t.
Sorry for the super late reply. It’s continued to be busy, but things are finally settling down for real.
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When urgent things seem to keep getting in the way of your writing, setting smaller goals for yourself like you seem to have done is a great way to fit in your writing time. You and your partner came up with a clever solution!
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Thank you! And I have to say it was really nice to have a partner who encouraged me to keep writing, despite what was going on.
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Hi, JS! Loved the Eisenhower chart, although I laughed at Amazon Prime Day. The was urgent and important for me because I really needed a new printer. It still hasn’t arrived, but it’s on its way. And I loved your writing solution ~ It’s gratifying to see blog writing as writing. Because it definitely is, and we can put a lot of time and care into writing our posts. I hope your urgent and important situation is working out well and easing. I need to better job of focusing on what is important, my writing. All the best to you!
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Thank you, and I hope you find your own way to stay focused on writing, no matter what else life may throw at you.
Sorry for the super late response. The good news is that my situation is finally getting back to normal.
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I’ve had a lot of urgent and important things happening in my life as well. Though I haven’t been engaging with your posts, I’ve enjoyed reading them as I process all that I’ve been going through. Thank you.
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I appreciate that. Thank you, friend!
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