Time works best when we are “in the flow.” Being “in the flow,” as I define it, simply refers to times in your life when you are able to focus on projects that serve your own best interest. Whether it’s a successful law career or cranking out a couple of kids, time is at its best when each day furthers our skills and interests. Time is at its deadliest when our days are filled with the wrong work. These are the dreaded “treadmill” periods. Before we know it, months have turned into years, and we are further and further from whom we wanted to be.

Even at the worst points, it’s possible to master time, but it takes an enormous amount of faith and patience. You literally have to defy what you see around you, ignoring the evidence that you’ve lost the battle. Indeed, you may have lost the battle. Conceding that may hurt like hell. Concede, but don’t capitulate. Sometimes it’s hard to assess where we stand; this is the maddening “one steps forward; two steps back” way of life.

Time is complicated: you have to judge your relationship to time based on a number of factors, including how much your time is worth, how much you love your work, and how much your work takes out of you. I don’t exactly score the best grades in these areas myself. It’s good to have stable clients and my own company, but I’m still at the point where the value of my time is not enough to save me from a lot of heavy hours in front of the computer. I really do like the work, but I feel chained to it more often than not.

How to increase the value of your time and make your business work for you is a worthy discussion for another time. For this chapter, let’s assume that whatever we’re doing to pay the bills now is not our ultimate choice, but a transitional occupation of some kind. So, how do we complete that transition? Take me for example: I hope to eventually spend all my time writing and/or marketing my own books. So how do I get there when my current workload crushes me all too often?

The answer lies in the tactic I call “stealing time.” To lay the groundwork for a better life, we need to find the time within our current lives to develop the assets that will someday support us. We need to figure out, week in and week out, how we can steal some time to apply to forward-thinking projects. The more time we are able to spend on “forward projects,” the sooner we will get there – but there is always a significant waiting period. If you’re as time-strapped as I am, I have some good news: the key is not how much time you can claim each week, but how consistently you claim it.

We spend most of our time on activities I call “paying the rent.” Some of this work truly is tied to our ability to pay the rent or mortgage, but I use this phrase more broadly. I use “pay the rent” to encompass all the things we must do each week to keep our lives afloat. This includes time we spend on exercise, family, grooming, and commuting as well as work. It even includes some time on the couch. Rest is part of the weekly cycle, and we ignore that at our own peril. Some entrepreneurs steal time by cheating their families or their bodies out of “maintenance time.” It’s a decision that has come back to haunt a lot of folks. It might work for a short period, but this book is about the long haul, and for the long haul, paying the rent is part of the deal, and that includes what others expect from us each day.

Now, there are some things we might initially classify as “paying the rent” that we are better off paying someone else to do: lawn care comes to mind. When it comes to stealing time, we’re on the lookout for any time we can claim that is not already earmarked for something important. Any time leftover once we’ve “paid the rent” and fulfilled our obligations is fair game. Reasonable goals are the best. With this book, I aimed for one chapter a week. I’ve missed some weeks, mostly due to illness or traveling. But when I’m in town and on my game, I’ve been able to steal time for a chapter a week. That’s all it comes down to. I like to call it “stealing time” because it sounds a lot sexier than what it really is. But I think it’s a fair term to use, because if the process is dull sometimes, the end result is sure magical.

When you find time for forward-thinking projects, you feel something shift. My morale goes up for the entire week when I find time to work on crucial projects. Developing future assets sends a strong message that I’m not giving up despite the odds. Finding a way to do that while maintaining my other commitments makes me feel like I just might be ok after all. We need to feel like the systems we have in place are functional, not dysfunctional.

I used to have these rosy ideas that I would get a week or two at the end of the year and “crank out a screenplay.” Or I would save enough money to take a year off and write my first book. It’s pretty talk, but it’s the talk of fools. We succeed when we find a way to insert forward-thinking time into our daily (or weekly) routine.

As for me, I don’t always know when my opportunity to write is going to hit. I don’t really have a set schedule. What I have is a series of daily and weekly priorities. Each week, after I get on top of my client projects, I start looking for an hour or two where I can take my laptop on the town.

Other people have different approaches. Sometimes more structure is the way to go, like the painter who sets his alarm one hour before his kids get up. What I can say for sure is that consistency is the key. Stealing time is a lot like weight loss – the dramatic diets that yield quick results often fall apart, whereas the lifestyle changes that support better nutrition for the long haul reap bigger dividends.

There are all kinds of ways to “steal time.” I’ve done some good work on this book while sitting next to Bob Barker fans at the car dealership. I juxtapose stealing time with paying the rent because it’s easy to beat ourselves up over all the things we don’t get done each week. But there are certain commitments we have to look after first, and that includes helping friends in need and lugging cats to the vet. We have to go easy on ourselves when it comes to living a full life.

But having said that, if we don’t work our bigger plans into the flow of our lives, we’ll be stuck with pipe dreams. The key is letting go of the “Somedays.” ‘Someday I’ll have time to do this or that; Someday I’ll have the right place/city/job.’ Most people who aren’t fixing their lives now will never get around to it. It’s hard to let go of those comforting “Somedays” and face that we’re no better than our present moment, but that’s also where the opportunity lies. It’s just that our big chance is grittier than we expected (or were told it would be), so it’s understandable we don’t recognize it even though it’s right in front of us.

For years, I kept working for the perfect time to write. It never came. If anything, life got more hectic and more difficult. My time got scarcer. But now I steal time to write even in the worst of times, even when there is good reason not to. I write when I’m sick; I write when I’m lonely; I write when I’m utterly discouraged. And the work adds up.

It’s amazing how many people refuse to get started on big plans because they think they have no time. What they really have is no belief in how a few hours a week, week in and week out, can eventually change everything. No question: it takes a lot of fortitude to gut your way through the early periods of such projects. But once you get in a groove, you’ll see that “stealing time” is worth it just for the psychological benefits.

When you take time seriously, good things start to happen. I find that my relationships improve also. It’s hard to be a force for good in the world when you have nothing to live for and nothing to defend. When you decide your time is worth protecting, it sets off a chain reaction where you no longer have room in your life for people who don’t have your best interests at heart.

Perhaps the reason people are so closed to this kind of approach is that we all hunger for a get-rich-quick scheme, a scratch ticket for human achievement. I just got an email from a web site visitor which said, “Show me how to get a big return with no money down.” There’s nothing romantic about the approach I’m advocating. It really is easier to throw drinks at problems rather than soldier along towards some elusive goal. There’s a whole lot of drudgery before you get to the good stuff. Those of us with little faith will be tested the most. I know I am still daunted by the odds sometimes. But it can be done, it’s worth doing, and at a certain point, your life depends on it – certainly your hopes of a better life do.

Want to buy Free From Corporate America or see reviews of the final published version from readers like yourself? The printed book is now available on Amazon.com with product reviews.

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