7 Steps To Reclaiming Time for Passion Projects

A no-nonsense guide to carving out precious time for the creative projects you care most about. (Filed under: advice I need to follow.)

Paper collage on digital ground

Welcome (or welcome back!) to Multifaceted, a weekly newsletter about finding delight and direction in a creative life made up of many different interests.

Anytime I rattle off my list of ongoing creative projects, I’ll hear one of two responses. Unfortunately, they both demonstrate a general misunderstanding of the creative process.

1. “Wow, you must be so busy.” 

Busy is something I feel when I'm doing everything except the stuff I most enjoy. 

When I'm in the creative flow, busy is the last thing that crosses my mind. Instead, I feel energized, fulfilled, and in control of my time.

2. “How do you find the time for all of that?”

You don't find the time for the things you enjoy. You make it. You carve it out and protect it like your happiness depends on it. (It does!)

What I don’t love about these questions is the underlying assumption that spending time on creative interests and hobbies is a rare and unusual feat – one that’s just out of reach for the average person.

As anyone with a passion project will tell you, this is simply not true. 

But saving time for the things we care about can be as tricky as saving money. It’s hard to know where to start.

And even if you’re a devoted time-saver and side-hustler, it’s easy to fall into routines that don’t serve you. (Speaking from experience here!)

It’s finally spring, which means the daylight lasts longer. It suddenly looks and feels like we have lots of extra time. Even though we have the same number of hours as always, this season is the perfect moment to rethink how we spend our days.

Are you struggling to carve out time for your creative passions? 

Same! So, let’s get back on track together. 

Here’s a no-nonsense breakdown of how to reclaim precious time for the projects we care most about.

Step 1: Shift your mindset 

Do you ever hear yourself saying, “I don't have time to do [X]”? What you’re really saying is, “[X] isn’t a priority for me right now.” 

Fill in the blank with your own project and say it out loud. 

How does that feel? Are you cringing? 

Yeah, kind of painful, isn’t it?

It’s because it forces us to take responsibility. We need to break the habit of blaming the hours of the day for our inability to make progress on the pursuits we supposedly care about. 

The first step in dedicating more time to our passion projects is to acknowledge that we’re in control of how we spend our time. 

It’s hard to own up to this – because if we’re not happy, it’s our own fault. (Again – painful!) 

It’s socially acceptable to blame our busyness and our responsibilities and our lack of free time. It’s so much easier to victimize ourselves at the hands of time than it is to take responsibility and accept control.

But when we acknowledge that we’re in control, we can actually do something about it. We can proactively identify the problem(s) in our schedule and find solutions. We can change!

Step 2: Audit your routine

What are you doing with your time these days? What’s standing in between you and your passion project? 

If you’re not sure, plot out a typical day or week in your life. Get detailed – down to 15-minute increments or even 5-minute spurts. 

Consider filling out a timesheet for a few days. Make note of all the moments you spend dilly-dallying throughout the day and you’ll see just how quickly they add up. 

After a week of tracking your time, you’ll start to notice little pockets that could be pretty easily reassigned to the activities you want to do.

Step 3: Start using a screen time tracker

Turn on the screen time tracking tool on your phone. Here’s how to do it on Android and iPhone.

Drop the widget smack dab in the middle of your home screen. (Don’t skip this step!) Then look at your screen time habits at the end of each day. I guarantee you’ll be horrified at the results. 

Take it a step further and track your non-work computer time or Netflix binging habits. There are apps out there that will automatically watch the clock while you stream, scroll or surf.

Again – scary stuff.

Auditing your routine is like filling a cup with big chunks of ice. Those blocks of ice represent the bulk of how your days are filled. Auditing your screen time is like topping it off with a margarita. Screen time is fun, addictive, and capable of filling in all the gaps you didn't even know were there. 

One minute you’re “just checking your phone,” Next thing you know – headache, hangover, regrets.

When I started tracking my phone usage last year, I was spending at least 4 hours scrolling per day. I was shocked to see those stats. 

And they seemed impossible! After all, I was working full 8-hour days, and most of my free time involved reading and cooking and going on walks and prepping our nursery. Where’d I get 4+ free hours every day from? 

Oh, all over the place. From “just looking something up” in between pages of the book I was supposedly reading. From mindlessly scrolling for 5 or 15 minutes here and there, all the time.

Just imagine using even half of that time every day for a passion project. That’d be 15 hours per week – a whole part-time job!

Step 4: Get your screen time under control

Awareness is essential, but you’re not going to slow your scroll without an intervention.

I set up an Instagram app timer so I’d get kicked off the ‘gram after about 45 minutes. More recently I dialed it down to 20 minutes. That gives me just enough time to chat with my friends and look at a few pretty things before the timeout warning pops up.

You might need to try something a little more drastic. Uninstalling an app from your device. Canceling a streaming subscription (or three). Leaving your phone in another room from dinnertime until the next morning. Whatever works! The less you compulsively consume, the freer you’ll feel to create.

These days, I’m averaging 2 to 2 ½ hours of phone time per day, which feels a lot more reasonable. Monday’s tally was 1 hour and 8 minutes – and Saturday was just 57 minutes. 

For what it’s worth, I don’t use TikTok and I don’t really watch TV. Am I missing out on all the cool content? Probably, but I’m more interested in creating my own content and working on a bunch of other passion projects.

Step 5: Redesign your schedule

By now, you should have a good sense of where you're spending your time.

Maybe you hit the gym 5 nights a week and wonder why you're too wiped out for that vegetable gardening dream you had. 

Maybe you spend most of your downtime scrolling or gabbing with your significant other when you could afford to spend an hour every other night on your passion project. 

Maybe you watch how-to-knit YouTube videos on your lunch break instead of picking up a ball of yarn and doing it.

Wherever your routine is falling short, now’s the time to fix it. Carve out a window of project time and see how it feels to have that in your schedule. If you keep up with a digital calendar, add a recurring event and name it after your project. 

Here’s a fun secret: You don’t have to align your project time with your peak productivity hours. You don’t even have to carve out a full hour. You just have to earmark a little bit of time and then use it.

Step 6: Give yourself bite-sized tasks

Using little bits of time is a lot easier when you’re prepared to make little bits of progress.

Big projects are intimidating. So, write out a list of small, manageable tasks you can do in the windows of time you’ve set aside. 

Think about creative tasks you can accomplish in just 15 minutes. Then as soon as your window of opportunity begins, you can jump right into a small but mighty to-do.

Last week I wanted to do some visual research for a design project. On my to-do list, I literally wrote: 

• Get books off shelves.

• Flip through books.

This might seem silly – but it worked. 

Step 7: Commit

Remember that saying, “[X] isn’t a priority for me right now”? Well, now we’re going to change things up. 

We’re going to say, “[X] is my top priority right now!” 

How do you treat your top priority? You commit. You show up early and stay late. You set aside distractions. You take yourself and your time seriously.

People will respect you for it.

More importantly, you’ll respect yourself for it. And you’ll probably enjoy your time a lot more, too.