I almost lost a whole blinking day

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Author

Alex Mathers
March 03, 2026

Your disk space is running critically low.

Oh jeez.

No wonder it sounds like my laptop is about to take off and fly to Greece this morning.

So I need to scootch over my plan for working on my novel this morning to create some more space so my computer doesn’t have a hernia.

I’ll give myself thirty minutes.

Half a day goes by.

It’s now nearly 4pm, and the vein on my neck is throbbing. The files are still transferring and everything is taking bloody ages and I hate my life.

So I quit. This relentless file transfer can wait. I can get back to work on a slower computer.

Because writing emails and working on my novel are non-negotiables.

I take a breath.

I’m finding writing this email rather therapeutic.

You may have been here too. Something seemingly “urgent” pops up in your life just as you’re about to work on something genuinely important…

WHAM.

Important is out the window and lame, completely bloody inconsequential takes precedence.

Sometimes things are genuinely urgent, sure. But often, it simply isn’t. ESPECIALLY if it’s knocking the important stuff off your schedule. Because those are the things you absolutely must make time for daily or you will have regrets (rightly so).

  • Dream novels don’t wait.

  • Your YouTube channel videos cannot wait.

  • Your 300 words of writing mustn’t wait.

Honouring your dreams before the other crap is a self-respect thing.

This means first making a commitment. An hour a day. Whatever it is that your important work needs.

Then you need to protect those hours like an angry Chicken mamma protecting its chicks.

If you struggle with honouring yourself FIRST (in a healthy non-toxic way), I wrote something that will help with exactly this.

It’s my book: The Art of Self Respect. It gives you 25 small habits to incorporate into your life that subtly but powerfully shift your self-image so your self-respect solidifies.

Then honouring your dreams every day doesn’t get flung to the side any more.

You start living for you again.

Alex