Holidays, Habits, and Christmas Updates

Okay, so… What the hell happened to December?

It’s always the same – the holidays come knocking, I have time off work, and I’m looking forward to spending it all writing and reading. Because you’d think that having 8 hours not spent at work every single day would amount to something, right?

Well that’s where you’re wrong.

I don’t understand where they go, but those hours just don’t exist anymore when I’m not at work. I’m a very habitual guy – something I go on about a lot in my blog posts. It’s how I manage to stay on top of writing, training, and reading regularly (amongst other things) – but as soon as I don’t adhere to a strict schedule I end up not having time for anything.

Of course, it’s fine. It’s the holidays, it’s Christmas, and it’s good to take a break. I’ve managed to do a few things this month, like finishing up my NaNoWriMo project, revise a novella, keep up with my December writing challenge that my wife made me, and write a few short stories – but when I look at what that amounts to in hours per day, it’s almost nothing.

Thankfully, I’ve *almost* gotten used to it by now, after God knows how many years of constantly being surprised by this lack-of-time-when-you’re-supposed-to-have-more-time thing that happens during every holiday. I’m going to spend the little time trying to focus on the future, planning what to work on at the start of the next year, and maybe finish reading a couple of books. You know – “relaxing” or whatever they call it.

But it still difficult to not be a little bit frustrated – I have so many things to work on, and so many things I’d like to be doing, and there’s all these hypothetical hours just sitting right there in “December”, slowly slipping through my fingers.

Anyway – how’s your December going? Getting a lot of work done? Planning the next year? Looking forward to Christmas?