How to be creative and work at the same time.

In my experience, when you start work for a ground handler for an airline, they will initially over hire. As the season progresses and people either transition to different accounts, quit, or are fired, there often is not the justification to hire and train additional employees if the company can get you to work more than the initial part-time hours they hired you for.

In my case, I am already seeing this happening again. The first time, I ended up working both a day shift and a night shift for a couple of weeks and ended up sleeping over at SeaTac Airport. Somewhere along the line in my hiatus while going to school at Green River the Port of Seattle removed the comfy modernist single cushion ‘couches’. The second time, I’m working for another account.

I’ve now see a significant hit to my actual writing productivity, time I designated for hanging out with friends, riding my bike, hanging out at ZAPP and I want to figure out why.

I know I need my day job. I need the money in order to live on my own. I do not want to rely on my parents.

But I also accept the fact I need to live too. I want to avoid the situation when I ended up working two shifts a day. Where I didn’t have much of a life. Where I didn’t ride my bike. Where I didn’t write because I didn’t feel like I had anything interesting to write about.

But in the same way, I know the additional hours are only temporary for the summer. I do want to move on from merely subsiding, to having some savings, buy a new bike, drink coffee, etc.

How do I put everything into a balance? Is balance even the right idea here?

I think the solution is to try to do things weekly. Ride my bike one day. Write a piece for Overcast Concrete before work. Write a short story before work. Hang out with friends one day. Go out to a concert on one night. Veg out at the library one day.

Fortunately my job is all in the afternoon. So I can sleep in, but I end up working when everyone else is just getting off work. It’s inconvenient, but not the end of the world.

So how do you remain creative while you work a day job. You keep moving your fingers, your legs, your bicycle, and your body to continue doing and making interesting things rather than being lazy and staying in bed all day.