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. 

Photo by Hope House Press - Leather Diary Studio on Unsplash

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

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? 

“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'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? 

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? 

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

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. 

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

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? The choice, and the commitment, is yours.