When you work for yourself, the work never truly ends. There is always something else to do — or you can simply double down on what you’re already doing.

I’ve noticed the same pattern with writing stories.

My swipe file has grown to hundreds of story ideas, and whenever I start working on one, five more pop up. There simply isn’t enough time to turn every idea into a book — not even into short story collections.

In general, days only have 24 hours. Nobody can go beyond that.

Once I realized this, I decided to focus on the idea I feel most passionate about right now to work on. If I’m excited about it, chances are the free market might be too.

At the beginning of the year, I had ambitious plans: write 12 books, produce more YouTube videos, finish my short story project, blog daily, read a book a week, and review a movie every month.

It’s impossible.

I have a full-time job, family responsibilities, and I try to fit in workouts every day. For a while, it felt like my days would need 48 hours to get everything done. It became overwhelming.

So I decided to slow down.

My YouTube channel is a passion project I’ve been building for seven years. I’m not going to abandon it anytime soon — I still want to reach 100,000 subscribers one day.

Beyond that, I focus on writing the story I’m most excited about at the moment.

By the end of the year, I will not have 12 new novels finished. But I will have added some good stories to my body of work — and that’s already something to be proud of.