Why I Like Schedules

Ever since I was an overwhelmed housewife early on in our marriage and a good friend from Campus Crusade for Christ showed me how to schedule, I have kept one going. In fact I change my schedule almost every month, to try and make it work better!

There were times when I got fed up with them and stopped using them, but that was really because I’d become a slave to my schedule.

That meant that I had become very inflexible, so if my husband wanted something doing and it didn’t fit in with my schedule I would get very stressed about it because I would get behind on everything else. Or I would say I couldn’t do it, and then not be very helpful to my husband!

At other times I have had a schedule on my wall and basically forgotten about it because it required discipline and diligence to stick to it and I was too tired.

However I think I have found a better balance now, and I was thinking the other day about why I like schedules so much. The biggest reason for me is that it means I don’t have to think, and I can try to make sure I’m not basing what I do on my feelings, but on decisions I made when I was looking at the big picture.

Because my boss is really Christ, who is my Master, but He doesn’t give me very specific directions on how to spend my time, that means I have lots of decisions all through the day. But the problem with that is that when I am tired (most of the time) I don’t feel like doing very much. So my decision making will naturally tend towards the easy life.

At other times there is a lot going on, since we also do a lot of ministry, so at those times my decisions will be governed by what is the most urgent. But then often that will mean other things fall behind that don’t cry out to be done, like laundry, devotions and so on.

The beauty of a schedule is that when I’m feeling awful and think, “What shall I do next?”, I can just tell myself to stick to my schedule. Then the important things get done, and I don’t have to make all those decisions which I feel too tired to make about what to do next.

When there is a lot going on, I can look at my schedule and decide what can be dropped in order to do those urgent things, but also keep up the other jobs as scheduled.

This way I am able to be diligent and not be governed by my feelings which usually let me down, and it helps me to make time for those things which otherwise would not get done because though they are important they are not urgent.

Here are some tips for scheduling from my experience of making lots of them:

• Make sure you give yourself quite a bit of pad – so if lunch should take 45 mins, give yourself an hour. Especially when you have kids you need this for the constant needs and questions (and messes :)) they have!
• When you sit down and make it, try to take everything into account that is important for you to do, and pray. That way when later you don’t feel like sticking to it, you can remind yourself that at the time you made it you were weighing up all the factors so it should be the best use of your time!
• Don’t schedule your slots too small or it will become very stressful – I usually schedule roughly an hour at a time.
• Don’t just schedule your work time, schedule your free time too. We should redeem the time and glorify God with all of it, so it’s good to think about that too, even if some of it is written in as ‘rest’.
• Don’t be too high idealistic. If you are getting up at 8am and want to get up at 6am, I wouldn’t schedule yourself to get up then because it probably won’t happen. It would be better to schedule yourself to get up half an hour earlier and then once you’ve got that working for a couple of weeks try another half hour earlier etc. This is one of my weaknesses since I always look at what I want to do and schedule myself to get up really early, but then it rarely works so I end up discouraged!
• If your days are different, try making a weekly schedule with different things on different days.
• Above all, be flexible! Don’t be a slave to your schedule, but make it your servant. If something more important comes up then don’t worry about dropping something on your schedule if necessary. I use mine more as a guideline nowadays and it works a lot better that way.