Investing in Me

 Have you heard of 20% Time? It's not a new idea, in fact, a quick look at Wikipedia shows that it comes from an initiative 3M started back in 1948 for employees to dedicated 15% of their paid time to their own projects. Google helped bring the idea back by allowing their employees to use 20% of their time for personal projects and there's been a movement to encourage more companies and even schools to follow suit. 

For some reason, if I'd heard of 20% time before this was the first time it really registered. As a mom trying to home school three kids while going to school online, juggling my responsibilities as Young Women President at church, being a wife, baking and decorating cakes, narrating and producing the occasional audiobook, and trying to be a person all at the same time can be a bit overwhelming. The idea of spending 20 minutes a day working something just because I wanted to seems unattainable, let alone 20% of my day or week. But I've been getting up at 6am to have some time for myself (see my post called The Formula) so maybe I could...or maybe my three-year-old has been getting up at 6:15am every day to ruin my plans. 

Either way, let's just say I magically have an hour every day to dedicate to my own projects: what do I do? This may all be an exercise in futility if I don't have the time, but if I don't have an idea the time doesn't matter. Out of the two, I'd rather have the idea, the dream. 

Let's look again at that list I made of all the demands on my time, do I like these activities? Do I want to be better at any of them? Yes, and yes. Okay, so which is the most important to me? My duties as wife and mother come first, which is generally how my time is spent, but I could take some dedicated time to find ways to be better at it? To be more efficient and effective? Well yes, now that seems obvious. I could take some time to be more organized and intentional with how I spend my time with my family, I could read books and study ways to strengthen our relationships. I could bring them along on my journey and we could do it together; whoever said working on my own thing had to be a solo project? 

These sound like really good ideas that I want to start implementing, but if I'm honest, does this make me excited? Not really. Alright, let's keep looking. Cake. That's something I could get excited about.

I'm self-taught (or should I say Google-taught?) and at this point, most of my cakes are for orders from friends and through word-of-mouth. I don't really take time to hone new skills or methodically try new recipes. If I dedicated one batch of frosting and fondant strictly for play and experimentation how many new ideas could I come up with? When I make frosting for an intended purpose it seems wasteful to use it just to play, but if I make it with the intention of play I might be able to adjust my feelings about it. For a few dollars worth of ingredients, I could gain hours of experience and exponential insights. This seems like something to pursue. Can I find the time? Probably, especially if I dedicate a bit of frosting for my kids to play with at the same time. 

Another way I can use the idea of 20% time for improving my cake skills is to increase what I charge (which I'm told all the time I should do, anyway) and set aside a bit from each sale to use on classes and tutorials to expand my knowledge base and skill set, learning from others. In the same light, I could use some of what I earn from audiobook sales to put toward hiring a voice coach to help me get better and thus get more deals and sales. I could use this one simple idea to expand my capabilities and enjoyment in every aspect of my life for the rest of my life. What an idea! 

My goal this week: Make a batch of frosting and fondant that no one will ever eat.