Holding myself accountable for how I spend my time

Why don't more people talk about time budgets?

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I've never really been on a budget. I grew up middle class. I did work-study through college to finance my pocket money. I graduated with minimal student loans and landed quickly in a well-paying tech job. I've also never had to budget my time. Before becoming a parent, my approach was to spend pretty much all of my time working, and any scraps that were left over were thinly divided among friends and family. Becoming a parent meant I carved some of the time from my work life (so instead of working 65ish hours a week, I worked 55ish 🙄) and a significant amount from the time I used to spend asleep (ha!).

In January 2025 I left my full-time job and a pretty successful (if I do say so myself) career to be a full time creative. What the hell was I thinking? I'm "following my dreams," I'm "pursuing my passions," or maybe I'm actually completely out of my mind. So what the hell do I do now?

I'm still working to find the rhythm of my new life. Instead of revolving around Zoom meetings and Slacks, it's more centered on school pick-ups, coffee with friends, and vague attempts at attending workout classes. Oh and sitting at my computer wondering what I'm supposed to do next. Turns out, when you've lived a highly structured life for the past two decades, it's really hard to go cold turkey into an unstructured one. And here's a hard truth: I'm not writing as much as I thought I would. I started this Substack to give myself a weekly writing exercise, but I'm blocked by the fact that I don't know what to write about. What is this Substack even about? That's a serious question, I'm hoping someone can tell me the answer.

What I've been up to

Now things are completely different. I have 55+ hours I used to spend working for someone else that I can put towards other things. The luxury of this is overwhelming. One year ago if you told me that I would have a full-time job's worth of time to do whatever I want, my mind would have spun with the possibilities. Just think how much I would accomplish! That was the approach I've taken for my first few months of retirement. But it turns out trying to do TOO MANY things means you don't make meaningful progress on any ONE thing. It's time to reign it in. I've been dabbling too much in too many different areas. In case you're interested, in the past 6 weeks I've:

• Started a Substack (hello 144 subscribers!)

• Built a website for kids to learn about AI

• Spent a ton of time researching how AI impacts kids

• Trained my own AI model (still a work in progress)

• Ramped up my 3D toy business with my son

• Taken over property managing 4 apartments (for my parents)

• Organized, organized, organized (ask me about my custom Wall Control system for my crafts and 3D printer supplies)

• Started consulting one day a week for a startup

Are retired people supposed to be this busy?

I've had a few friends accuse me of not really being retired. They're not totally wrong. I'm not retired in the sense of playing golf every day and taking long boozy lunches. But every day, I wake up and pretty much do what I want to do. It might be writing, reading, going for a walk with a friend, sitting in a cafe and drinking a latte. It also might be building a website just for fun or painting with my son. And yes, I am still working for pay, but it's only the exact amount I want to work and with the very small number of clients I carefully pick. So yes, I think I'm retired. I'm at least retired from the 9-5 grind (LOL, I have never worked 9-5, that's so cute).

As a means of holding myself accountable, here is how I want to spend my time for the rest of the year (Substack is an accountability platform, right?)

The book ~25 hours/week

This is where I want to spend the majority of my time this year. I'm building myself a publishing timeline with a goal of publishing my Middle Grade Science Fiction novel by September 2025. That's right folks, you heard it here first, debut novel coming in September. What do I need to do in advance of that?

• Pick a developmental editor: I've been talking to a few lovely editors who all seem amazing and I'm having a hard time deciding! I want to work with all of them.

• Get the last round of beta reader feedback: I am on round THREE of beta reader feedback. I'm mostly focusing on beta readers in my target age group (9-13) this time around.

• Copyedit the book: This will likely be with a combination of AI (YES I SAID IT) and human copy editors.

• Start marketing: Lots in this step, I will unpack in a later post, also need to figure out the plans.

• PUBLISH AND LAUNCH: More TK (that's a little editing joke for you, go ahead and Google it if you don't know what that means).

• Continue marketing like crazy: Visit schools and libraries, submit to awards, etc.

Other creative projects and hobbies ~20 hours

This is a big bucket that includes a lot time for non-book creative projects I want to spend time on. That might be 3D printing endeavors, learning how to use power tools or other more traditional arts -- paper craft, fiber arts, printmaking, etc. It’s also almost gardening season in New England, and once that gets going I will spend a good amount of time on that (although much of it might be sitting in the garden in the sunshine reading a book). I have always been a woman of many artistic and creative hobbies and I want to leave time for that.

Tech consulting and advisory ~10 hours/week

Even though I dropped out of tech, I actually truly love the work that I did, I just couldn't keep doing it full time. I still get so excited about GTM strategy, messaging, positioning, category creation, and I'll admit even packaging and pricing. For me, doing ~10 hours of this a week is perfect -- I get to keep exercising this muscle that I spent almost two decades building, but not so much that I get burned out. I'm limiting myself to working with two companies at a time to keep it manageable and so far this seems about right.

Friends, family, and household stuff - the balance

That's it! The rest is for spending with the people I love or keeping our house livable. I'm extremely lucky to be in a heterosexual partnership with a VERY NEARLY equal division of household labor. My husband does 95% of the cooking, grocery shopping, and meal planning, which is HUGE. I do 95% of the cleaning and organizing and financial accounting. Childcare is fairly equal, although I do spend more time with our son now that he doesn't go to after school every day, and he won't go to camp for the entire summer.

Time is the most precious commodity

I feel ridiculous saying it, but I'm increasingly feeling like time is the most valuable item I have to spend right now. Maybe it's because I saw first hand how fragile life is when I supported my husband while he kicked cancer's ass. Or because I'm watching my son grow up in the blink of an eye. But I'm increasingly aware of how I spend my time.

Does that mean I "make every moment count"? Absolutely not. But I am thinking more critically about the things I feel like I should do versus the things I want to do. This line of thinking is what led me to getting off the achievement treadmill. It's what is driving me to publish a book before my 40th birthday. Because if I've always wanted to be a published author, and I have a finished manuscript on the shelf, what am I waiting for?

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AI Transparency Disclaimer: No parts of this article were written with AI. I used Claude to provide light copy edits to improve grammar and readability.