The Power of an Hour

Are you ready to turn your world upside down?  If you're unhappy with the results you're getting, maybe it's time for a make-over.  Before you get carried away and start tearing everything apart, consider how one small cosmetic improvement can change everything.  Consider renovating one hour of your life.  That's an investment of about 4% of your time.  Here's how it works:

1. Ask yourself, what is my favorite hour of the day?  For me, my most productive time is when I first wake up.  I feel alert and ready to tackle my day.  The sun is peeking out over the horizon, the birds are chattering and my mind is well-rested.  This is my hour of power.
2. Designate your favorite hour as your hour of power.  You will need to re-shuffle your day to absorb all the necessary tasks you need to get done in the other twenty-three hours of your day.  From now on, your hour of power belongs to you.  This is your investment in yourself.  If anyone interrupts you, they're cheating you.  If you allow interruptions, you're cheating yourself.
3. Decide what's important to you.  Take your time with this.  One way to discover what matters most is to ask yourself, how do I want to be remembered when I'm no longer on this earth?  Is it a painting?  A song?  A poem?  Maybe a memoir or a novel?  Search deep for the answer.  You are uniquely qualified to do something only you can do.  Once you find your answer, you will know how to invest in your daily hour of power.
4. Commit to your hour of power every day for the rest of your life.  Remember, this is your hour.  This is your time.  The world can get along fine without you for one hour a day.  You need to be firm about when visiting hours are closed.
5. Use your hour wisely.  This is not the time to drift.  Make a plan for your hour.  Follow the plan.

I started my hour of power nearly four years ago when I became a writer.  There were many critics who told me, "you're wasting your time."  Others told me, "don't quit your day job."  Three or four people read my first blog story.  I stuck with my routine.  If my monthly readership remains constant at 10,000 page views per month, I will reach the one million mark in seven short years.  That's seven more years of waking up in the morning and investing in my hour of power.  The same formula works to keep me focused on my books.  Click here to see how I'm using my hour of power to pen my e-serial novel, The Caveman in the Mirror.  It's free to all my blog readers.  There's no magic to writing a book.  I release one chapter a week as I'm writing it.  My readers expect one new chapter every Friday morning at 8:08 AM, Pacific Time.  By sticking to my hour of power, I can write a whole series of books during my lifetime.

Are you ready for a make-over?  Please share how you plan to use your hour of power by clicking the comment button below.  Thanks for your participation.