Hey matt, what I find helps, although I don't get to play as much as I would like, is to have my gear readily available. I am lucky enough to have my own jam room now so everything is ready to go when I want it.

for me, a huge mission was to go and unpack stuff and set stuff up.

now, even with having a family, when I get a five minutes spare I can easily get jamming.

[Should be in General Music I think. I'll post this and then move the topic.]

Learn to survive on less sleep. Don't waste time on things that ultimately don't matter, like TV (unless it performs another function, like sharing some time with family). Budget your time to do the things that are important to you and don't resent the time spent on other, necessary things. Don't try and do everything at once (ask me), because everything will suffer as a result. When you do something, focus on it and do it properly.

You're studying now, so that's going to take up more of your free time. View it as a necessary evil and know that it's only going to be for a while. Do it properly when you do it and then you can move on, your time will free up a bit (as long as you don't replace it with something else).

Above all, don't waste time with people and things that sap your energy and time. Be a bit selfish in that regard. Learn to say no - even to family and friends. Especially in relationships - don't partner with someone needy that demands all of your available free time to do things you have no interest in. Find someone that complements you, your interests and passions and that supports you in what you want to achieve. Preferably that has a life of their own without you (so you don't end up feeling guilty when you spend time on things without them - you'll end up resenting them for it. And for heaven's sake, don't begrudge them the time they spend on their passions/interests.

IMO, relationships should be easy and natural - you should "click" with your partner and friends and not have to "work on it" to make things work. I dunno - maybe I'm just lucky in this regard.

Pretty much the above, budget your time, you can make a pretty serious dent with just 30-45 minutes of PROPER practice ever day, if you just do that every day you'll get results, or at least maintain what you have, but that amount of time is enough to make constant gradual improvements, then if you have any spare time you can "jam" or whatever.

So if you take 5 minutes off shower time, 15 minutes off something else, a few minutes here, a few minutes there, you don't really have to change much at all, just penny pinch those 30-45 minutes and get on with it, if you watch even ONE dumbass-sitcom (which is pretty much all of them) then you can easily cut that out and there you go.

Dude, get yourself some kids then you'll realise how much time you actually had! ?

Between bathing, feeding and generally spending time with three kids (now including grade 7 homework >), my day job and my business I started 'on the side' which is a full time job in itself, I have no time to myself. I don't watch TV anymore (unless its live sport but then I am usually working at the same time), and like Alan said, I have had to learn to adapt to less sleep.

I do take one night off a week from work to have a jam session with a few buddies (but even after they have left, if I haven't had too many beers, I find myself doing some work). And tonight I just felt like I needed half an hour of bashing out some overdriven chords. But its not nearly enough... I see it as putting in the hard graft now so that hopefully in a few years I can enjoy the finer things in life.

But going back to the kids, when we had our first we thought back on all the time we had when we were kid-less. Then the second came and we thought back on how much time we had when there was just one...

Time is the thing these days. We have a lot more, sure, but we have to do a lot more too. The people with TIME are the really wealthy guys. To a degree it's a question of managing time, but there's also the problem of it being in such short supply.

shew, i can relate to giggsy on the homework front. my daughter's in grade 6 - it seems like every year homework multiplies exponentially.

kids and family take up a lot of my time, so does work. oddly enough, so does gfsa - inordinately so, but i get a lot out of the forum and the folks around here, so it's very much worth it. i'm supposed to be on a bit of an hiatus from you lot, only really on today to vote on the monthly competition entries.

i've found the thing to do is prioritise, seriously. (as you can see by virtue of the fact that i'm even typing this post, i'm not very good at it ?.) this is a task in itself. what are the things you absolutely need to do? want to do? wish you could do?

define 'need'. define 'want'. define 'wish'. you may find that 'need' has a very separate definition in your life to 'have to'. for instance, you have to work, you have to study. you have to stay healthy. but do you need to gym every evening? or could you do the healthy thing another way? gym every other evening and break your cardio into a 30min run on your other evenings? or mornings? time is not of the essence, it is the essence these days. (i dunno, i'm certainly no expert, just suggesting that there's an alternative.)

what you (apparently) wish you could do, is spend more time on your passions. so you (ahem) need to define what those passions are, and find a way for those passions to end up on your 'need' list. or something like that.

it's not a fine-tuned process yet, it's a work in progress. basically it involves shuffling your priorities to different states (up and down), and changing the amount of time and energy you therefore devote to them.

my wife, for instance, spends all day at work, but comes home a little earlier than i do and most days, picks up the kids. she'll then make dinner, but once we have the kids in bed and homework's done, she loves nothing more than to watch tv or read a book. (or, lately, play this ice age game that's all the rage.) me, i'll read a bit, but i'm better off spending time in my studio. d'you think i'm up there doing that? not bloody likely. but i so should be.

the trick, they say, is to make a physical exercise of it. grab a pen, write it all out and, as things change, update it on the page. and don't make a spreadsheet out of it - that's the lazy man's way. do it the analaogue way. use highlighters if you want...

you may just realise some things about yourself on the way. i have
dh|

IMO, relationships should be easy and natural - you should "click" with your partner and friends and not have to "work on it" to make things work. I dunno - maybe I'm just lucky in this regard.

This is the start of the Aunty Alan column I can see it!

All I can say is, if you're devoting so much time to your studying/ work, cooking and gyming, then it is your passion, because otherwise you wouldn't be doing it. Unless you mean "passions", then I go with what Alan said.

There is always the Keith Richards method...