SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

SCHEDULING, SCHMEDULING (YAWN). WHAT'S THE POINT?
Some of us resist schedules because they seem restrictive, anti-creativity, control-freakish. Certainly some schedules are that way. If you're scheduling your time down to ten-minute sections, I think we might need to work on your control freak tendencies. On the other hand, if you schedule nothing and live to follow the natural flow, you not only stifle productivity but you will also end up stifling creativity as well. You live by a schedule whether you admit it or not; a schedule is simply a matter of doing a certain thing at a certain time. When you take initiative to set your own schedule, you can do so according to your own priorities. When you don't set your own schedule, you are not only at the mercy of your own whims (which very often do not line up with your bigger goals and priorities) but you are also at the mercy of others who will not hesitate to impose their schedules on yours... or your lack thereof. So it really comes down to whose schedule you want to follow: yours, thoughtfully laid out, or some haphazard construct of circumstances. Seems like a no-brainer to me, but take the time to think it over if you must.

BASIC SCHEDULING
I like to keep my schedule pretty basic. It includes 1) A Beginning and an End and 2) Time Blocks. There are multiple planning calendars in as many formats as you can dream up. I find them all too complicated for my simple living preferences. This is not true for everyone; my husband loves his Franklin Covey planner and uses it faithfully. I feel restricted by all those boxes with lines and titles. The perfectionist in me just can't leave well enough alone, so I spend more time scheduling in all the pretty boxes than I do actually implementing my schedule. Since the point of a schedule is to simplify and to increase productivity, and I find that the more complex planners accomplish neither goal for me, I stick with my basics and forgo the professional leather-binder look. You might find that a combination of methods works best for you. My advice is this: start simple and be diligent with your simple scheduling techniques. Once you know they work for you, you can tweak and add on and adjust to your heart's delight. Don't start way at the top of the complex calendar hierarchy. The very complexity is too overwhelming to keep up when you're first learning how to schedule, and you'll get discouraged and drop it all.

A BEGINNING AND AN END
This topic makes me think of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, when she first attempts to teach the Captain's children how to sing: "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..." Of course, she drops her little Happy Beginnings song in favor of the inexplicably popular Do-Re-Mi. We, however, shall carry our Happy Beginnings all the way to Happy Endings.

What needs a beginning and an end is your working day. Your entire day is capped on both ends automatically by your bed. You wake up and get out of bed, your day begins. You get sleepy and get back in bed, your day ends. I see no reason to mess with that kind of perfection, unless you need some help on the waking up and getting out of bed part. We'll get to that in another article. For now, we're dealing with the workday itself, the part of the day that begins after you've been awakened by the sound of bluebirds (or the alarm clock) and, I hope, have eaten a halfway decent breakfast. Oh, also, you should get dressed. Maybe even before breakfast.
Your workday beginning may be set in stone already. You have to be at the office at 9:00 am. There you go. 9:00 am it is. For those of us who work in more flexible fields, in which the office hours dictate next to nothing, setting a Beginning is a matter of choice and convenience. If you're a stay-at-home Mom trying to wake, dress, and feed three kids, then give yourself enough time to do that before you try to get down to the rest of your work. If you're a work-from-home small business owner who likes to start the day with a two-hour gym session, then set your workday beginning accordingly.

The End of the workday is just as important as the beginning. Again, this may be dictated by office hours, or it may be a matter of choice and fitting in with what happens in the rest of your day. Perhaps it's 3:00 pm when the kids get home from school. Perhaps it's 6:00 pm when your spouse gets home from work. Perhaps it's 9:00 pm when you realize you haven't eaten anything since noon. (I don't recommend that last time option, by the way.) Choose an End. Put a cap on your working hours. Sure, you can always choose to do "extra" work or finish up projects in the evening if you want to, but that should be something you do because you really want to, not because you have to, and it should never interfere with your family time or social obligations.

My workday beginning is 8:00 am and my workday end is 5:00 pm. Of course there is more that happens before and after those times, but it is within those times that I block out time for work and have specific goals to accomplish.

BLOCKING OUT YOUR TIME
I learned this one from my husband, who implements the concept with his Franklin Covey planner in a way I can only admire. The idea itself is rather simple and works beautifully for helping to keep me on track without overwhelming me with details.
Establish the basic key areas of your work.
Note how much time you would like to spend per week on each area.
Note your recurring obligations: errands, events, meetings, social responsibilities, etc.
Plug in time blocks for those key areas.
Don't worry about the details!

THE KEY AREAS
Since I am a stay-at-home Mom and a work-from-home writer, my key areas are Household and Writing. Keep your key areas as general and broad as you can. There is always opportunity to hash out the details later. Try to have no more than four key areas. You want to be able to remember them and you want to be able to block time for them all. If you have too many, you'll defeat yourself before you even get started.

NOTE YOUR PREFERRED TIME
I would like to put in 15 - 20 hours per week in Writing and I know I need to put in at least 10 - 15 hours per week in Household if I am going to keep things running smoothly. Remember, the more key areas you have the less time you can put into each one.

NOTE YOUR RECURRING OBLIGATIONS
Note all the meetings, social events, church and school events, regular errands, or other obligations that take place within your workday. Do they occur at the same time every week? Do they vary from week to week? Approximately how much time per week is required for these obligations? If your workday lasts for 7 hours, 5 days a week, and your recurring obligations take up about 2 hours per day, 5 days a week, then you need to subtract 10 hours from your 35 working hours to get your actual working total: 25 hours.

PLUG IN TIME BLOCKS
If you have 4 key areas and you would like to spend 6 hours per week on each one, you've got a total of 24 hours available. With your total of 25 working hours, you're within your boundaries but haven't left yourself much room for padding. It's a good start and you can tweak it as you go. Now it's your choice as to where you place those time blocks. You can spend six hours in a row on one of your key areas, then switch to another the next day. Or you can divide it up: 2 hours for Area 1, then 2 hours for Area 2, etc. It's much, much better if these blocks can be a standard, repeated schedule. Repetition will result in unconscious mental training and you'll be much more productive during your working time.

DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE DETAILS!
Don't waste your time on 10-minute blocks for every little event that makes a demand on your time. You want to get a big picture that is simple enough to carry with you even if you're not carrying a planner or calendar.

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND SCHEDULING INSTRUCTIONS
Here's what my daily schedule looks like. It's pretty simple, and even though I still write it down almost every day just to keep myself on track, I can remember it without my notebook.

• 8-10 HOUSEHOLD
• 10-12 WRITING
• 12 Lunch, etc.
• 1-3 HOUSEHOLD
• 3-5 WRITING/Rest

While I can set aside my writing, the household obligations don't automatically shut off at 5pm. That'd be nice, but I have never gotten it to work that way. There's that pesky problem of supper and needing to bathe children and little things like that. So I do what needs to be done for my household work after the official workday ends, but I keep it to a minimum. The bulk of my cooking and cleaning I try to get done in those scheduled hours.

FLEXIBILITY
That's my standard schedule, but it isn't etched in stone or even written in Sharpie. I'm often behind or ahead by half an hour or so. If I have a big household project I want to complete, I'll commit a couple of writing blocks to it. No guilt. It's my schedule, after all, and the point of it is to keep my life simple and productive and to help me accomplish my goals. A schedule is a fluid thing and will change with every season of your life. That's okay. Work with it. Tweak it. Be open to change. But have that basic structure in place so you don't end up just floating around aimlessly, wondering at 6pm where the last 8 hours went and why you didn't get anything done. Having a schedule gives you a plan, a starting point, an agenda so you can say NO to the unnecessary because you have already committed to the necessary. It also gives you freedom and flexibility so you can allocate time the way you want to without feeling guilty about it.

COMMON SCHEDULING PROBLEMS
Cramming: You are a mere human, after all. Eating, sleeping, and bathroom breaks are a necessary part of life. You can't schedule them out. And you are surrounded by a lot of other mere humans, who may call you on the phone or stop by your desk or need help with an important presentation or with tying their shoes. Don't cram so much into your schedule that losing ten minutes of it sets you hopelessly behind. Keep your time blocks big. It's okay if you give a few minutes away here and there. Give yourself some padding.
Detailing: Detailing your car, good idea. Detailing your schedule, not so much. If you came up with 15 key areas that you're trying to block time for, you have complicated your life far more than any human should. This practice keeps you from seeing a big picture. Details will only allow you to see chopped-up tidbits and you will never feel like you're making any big progress. Compare. Does it sound better to say, "I just spend 15 minutes on cleaning and then 10 minutes on decorating and then 15 minutes on meal preparation and then 10 minutes on cleaning out the refrigerator and then 5 minutes on checking email and then 20 minutes on laundry and then 10 minutes on sorting the mail..." or to say, "I just spend two hours managing the household." Don't feel that you have to have a 100-item list of things you've done at the end of the day. A short list of a few good, solid, big ones is far more satisfying.
Varying: If you have to spend 15 minutes every morning planning out how to block your time, you're making it too complicated. Obviously there are things you can't control and can't plan for ahead of time. But to the extent that your life and obligations have repeating, weekly patterns, you can block time in a repeating pattern. If you've kept your key areas broad enough, you can focus on a variety of different items within each time block to keep yourself from feeling bored.
Forgetting: I say forgetting, but the real problem is Failing to Implement. Once you've made your schedule, use it! If you're not sure you'll like it, try it for a week or a month. You can adjust all the parts that don't work for you. Just commit to it. Be diligent. Make it a foundational part of your life, and you'll streamline about 30 decisions that you currently have to make every day into one easily remembered plan of action.

Go get 'em, Tiger.