The Zombie Apocalypse As Described By A Golf Commentator #3 And Thoughts On Fitting Everything In

The Zombie Survival Association Tour moves on today with its third competitor, Phil Woods.

Phil was fortunate enough to become trapped in the pub at the start of the zombie apocalypse. Good for him, but the bar snacks are running dangerously low and someone is going to need to make a run to the cash and carry.

This is the continuing saga of four individuals who have become a small part of my weekly routine of creativity. As I’ve mentioned before, trying to fit all my interests in is a demanding job! You’ll see that my `Instagram feed has made it onto this blog, so that’s thing number 1: drawing.

I rediscovered my love for drawing about 2 years ago and concentrated hard on improving my skills in that area and I hope you can see some improvement over this time by looking back through my IG feed. This is great, but it has obviously had an impact on thing number 2: writing.

For the first of those 2 years, I let the writing slide, and only gave it a cursory glance, but as I’ve said before, and as I’m sure you know, to be good at something takes time, effort and perseverance. So I’d need to split me time between those 2 pursuits, right? If it were only that simple. I’ve also been dealing with thing number 3: this blog.

Whilst I don’t strictly write these posts for views and likes (luckily!), it is a good feeling when someone views something I have worked on and the converse is true for when nobody reads. I am not unhappy with the interactions I’ve had with people through blogging. In fact, I’ve met some wonderfully helpful people and seem to have acquired a handful of regular commenters, which is great. So all I’ve got to do is split me time 3 ways, right? Wrong. Did I mention I have thing number 4: a wife and two children?

Apparently they quite like me and enjoy spending time with me. My son in particular always seems to need me to drive him somewhere: gym, climbing, skateboarding, girlfriends. As frustrating as this is, I have to admit to enjoying time spent with them too. Of course, I would never tell them that. So that just means splitting my time into 4 then? Well, i’m not including sleeping and eating time, but there is one more thing to account for: thing number 5: Multiple Sclerosis.

I call it thing number 5, but really, it places huge restraints on how I can manage the other 4. Just when I think I’ve got some time to sit and do something, MS rears its ugly head and says ‘you know that stuff you were going to do today? Yeah, well forget about it. How about you just sit and stare for a while?’

Which leads me round nicely to how to cope with conflicting demands. My children are older (21 and 16) so pretty much take care of themselves. You might have much younger children or other people that you have caring responsibilities for, you might run your own business or have a full time job, all of which place extra demands on your time.

So what’s the trick?

Everyone will have their own method of coping, but you may consider some of the strategies that I have used from time to time:

Choosing less interests to spread your time over! – Simple, yet effective but it comes with a caveat: you must be happy to let some things slide and in doing so, not beat yourself up with ‘If only I could have done X instead of Y’. Be prepared to let one or two things go. That does not mean you can’t change your priorities and switch up what you’re going to work on, it just means be prepared that some things jut aren’t going to get done.

Create a schedule for yourself – are there certain times of day that work better for certain activities? For example, I struggle with writing in the evenings if I’ve been drawing (or writing) all day, so evenings I will switch to an activity that is less demanding on my body such as thinking or planning a story or what I’m going to work on the next day.

Just let it go! – Easier said than done, but by putting your own circumstances in perspective, you will hopefully be able to see the you can’t do everything all the time. Sometimes things are just going to have to wait till tomorrow or next week. If you have targets you’re not meeting, were they ever realistic? Were they SMART? Can you adjust them? Take another look at your schedule and see if other things can’t be moved around. Perhaps some things are as time-critical ( who REALLY needs to eat?).

Don’t beat yourself up – If you’ve not done something today, tackle it tomorrow, safe in the knowledge that circumstances conspired against you today; tomorrow could be better.

All of these take work, trust me. You can do this. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

On to the zombies…