You probably have something creative you like to do. Maybe it’s music, or painting, or acting. Maybe you like to draw, or do pottery, or make toys. Or perhaps your passion is sewing or writing or cooking. You’d like to spend time being an artist. Are you doing it?

The obstacle seems to be time. As in “I don’t have enough time to paint,” or “If I only had more time I’d audition for the next community theater play.” I suspect you have enough time. We all get the same number of hours in a day or a week, and yes, we all have different jobs and responsibilities. It’s not easy to change our schedules to “make time” for our creative, artistic selves, but it’s important to do it.

Here’s an exercise: For the next few days (two or three should be enough) write down all the things you do and how much time they take. When you’re done, find an hour in each of the days you’ve recorded that went to low-priority tasks or even wasted time that you can reclaim for your art time. The exact times don’t matter; the purpose of the exercise is to prove to yourself that you could find a hour a day to be creative if you really wanted to.

If you could find an hour a day, that’s seven hours a week. You could go to two or three rehearsals, play music in public a couple times a week, or dedicate 60 minutes every day to writing.

There, you’ve got the time! Now go do something creative!