Commitment inventory: aligning your priorities

A system to manage your time and energy.

Even when you make that glorious leap, leave your full-time job behind and wholeheartedly pursue writing, you're going to need a system to manage your time and energy.  

The commitment inventory comes from Mark Forster's book Get Everything Done—and Still Have Time to Play.

The core idea is this: instead of trying to manage time—which, let's face it, is a losing battle in our always-on, productivity-obsessed culture—you need to manage your attention. 

Here's why this matters for you: Every time you say "yes" to something, you're saying "no" to something else. That overtime your boss is pushing? It's a "no" to working on your newsletter. That networking happy hour? A "no" to reading the books that will fuel your writing. Your attention is a finite resource, and you need to start treating it that way. 

“We cannot manage time — but we can learn to manage how we direct our attention” — Mark Forster.

This idea echoes Alex Soojung-Kim Pang's Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, which emphasizes that rest is a crucial element of productivity. If you're not scheduling downtime into your inventory, you're likely setting yourself up for burnout.

So, how do you figure out what your attention is worth? Forster suggests a little math exercise. Take your current salary, divide it by two, and that's roughly what an hour of your attention is worth. Making $60,000 a year? Your attention is worth about $30 an hour.  

But here's where it gets interesting for those of us planning a great escape: What do you want to be making from your Substack in a year? Two years? Five years? Do that same calculation with your dream income. Suddenly, mindlessly scrolling for an hour doesn't seem like such a good use of $50 or $100 worth of your attention, does it? 

Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy takes this one step further, urging us to resist the pull of constant distraction. She reminds us that attention isn’t just valuable—it’s powerful. When you direct it intentionally, it can change everything.

“Remember: every time you take on a new commitment, you have to stop doing something you are doing at the moment.” — Mark Forster

So, here is what you need to do.

So, here's what you're going to do: 

1. Make a list of everything you spend time on. And I mean everything. That Instagram doom-scrolling session? Write it down. The two hours you spent "networking" (read: gossiping) with coworkers? Yep, that too. 

2. Categorize it—work, writing, family, self-care, whatever buckets make sense for your life. 

3. Now, the hard part is to start cutting. What on that list is moving you toward your goal of full-time writing? What's just noise? 

This is where Greg McKeown’s Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less shines. The book teaches you how to identify the vital few from the trivial many. As you cut commitments, ask yourself: Is this task essential to my goals, or am I holding onto it out of obligation?

Tanya Dalton’s The Joy of Missing Out offers another perspective: embrace the power of saying "no" and reclaiming your time for what truly matters. Every “yes” should align with your vision, not someone else’s priorities.

4. Assign percentages to each category. Be realistic but also aspirational. If you're not spending at least 20% of your time on writing and related activities, how serious are you about this career change? 

Assign percentages to each category. Be realistic but also aspirational. If you’re not spending at least 20% of your time on writing and related activities, how serious are you about this career change?

Brigid Schulte’s Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time provides a framework for understanding how systemic pressures keep us trapped in cycles of overcommitment. Use this insight to break free and allocate your time intentionally.

5. Break down your big writing goals into smaller, manageable chunks. "Write a bestselling Substack" is not a task. "Draft one newsletter post" is. 

James Clear’s Atomic Habits emphasizes the importance of small, consistent actions. Turning big goals into manageable tasks makes progress inevitable—and sustainable.

6. Work in focused bursts. Maybe it's the Pomodoro technique (25 minutes of work, 5-minute break), or maybe it's longer stretches. Find your rhythm. 

Cal Newport’s Deep Work offers strategies for creating the conditions necessary for focused, high-quality work. Carve out “deep work” blocks in your inventory to tackle the tasks that matter most.

My example of using the commitment inventory I created on Google Docs

Finally, don’t forget to schedule rest. As Alex Soojung-Kim Pang argues in Rest, downtime isn’t a luxury; it’s a strategic tool for sustaining creativity and avoiding burnout.

John Fitch and Max Frenzel’s Time Off reinforces this idea, advocating for deliberate rest as a way to recharge and come back stronger.

The point is, you need to start treating your attention like the valuable resource it is.  

So, future full-time writer, what's it going to be? Another hour lost to busy work, or the first step towards the career you actually want?

As Oliver Burkeman writes in 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, life is too short to spend it on anything less than what truly matters. Your inventory isn’t just a list—it’s a declaration of what you value most.

The choice, and the commitment, is yours.