Inevitably one of the things I tool with at the beginning of each year is my daily and weekly schedule.
The reality - played out for me over years and years of experience, mostly bad - is that I do best with a schedule. If I have set things scheduled at set times, I am more likely to do them. If I do not, even the best intentions will not get me to address them.
A simple one is the weight training. I do best when I have three times - ideally the same time - scheduled for my weight training. Once upon a time is was Monday/Wednesday/Friday evenings until Iaijutsu class was moved. My choices remained going at lunch - which on the whole is more ideal although I need to get over the guilt of being away from my computer for an hour - or going Tuesday/Thursday and Friday/Saturday evenings. Perhaps not surprisingly, if I go Tuesday and Thursdays, often as not Friday becomes Saturday or even Sunday (and that work out is Deadlift Day, which I actually like). I am back to trying lunches again - but lunch every day of the week (it is a 5-10 minute drive each way to the gym, so I easily have 40 minutes to work out, which should be more than enough time).
Or writing. I write best, it seems, when I write in the mornings post my early morning routine of Bible reading, prayer, journaling, calisthenics, short crossword of the day, Old English, and walking Poppy. If I try to do it in the evenings, it is a hit and miss not only of terms of if I do it, but in terms of the quality of the work (also, it gives me the bulk of the day to come back and edit, something which I struggle with). The ideas may come earlier during the day - I spend a great deal of my time walking Poppy muttering to myself - but I just wwrite better in the morning.
And so on. Iaijustsu class happens two nights and one morning a week, the rabbits need my help every Sunday after church and cleaning up after my own mob. Everything can have its place and still leave time in the week for blocks of free time on most days.
The biggest challenge is the other daily items I need to do to get better - Japanese and Harp, gardening. I still struggle to find a regular time that works; after work (but prior to dinner) is the regular time that I have for this activity. It is not ideal, mostly because coming off of work I would like some time to decompress - I am working on finding a solution.
The other big challenge that I face this year is making time to practice writing more (it is on the list). The recommendation from Alan Watt of The 90 Day Novel is two hours a day. Where that time is coming from at the moment, I have no clue. It is okay though - it is still early in the year.
The thing that all of this necessitates is a pretty firm schedule with specific times for rising, going to bed, working, and the allocation of the regular times. This is always my challenge (as it has been this year as well). Every year I seem to get about 1% better at it.
Barring something significant like death or retirement, I grasp that this is ultimately a short term arrangement. But if I am honest, it somewhat embitters me that so much of my productive time is actually invested in work, something I never quite feel all that productive in.
Ah well. Until then, I have plenty to keep me busy - and plenty of schedule to continue to tweak.
I try and keep my compensated work separate from my off time. I try to be a 'wait to worry' person, turning off the switch so I can concentrate more on the task at hand.
ReplyDelete"Wait and Worry". I like that.
DeleteOn the whole I try to keep compensated and off time separated, although I will say I am finding that I have to have organized and designated areas for this to happen. For example, my "work" area is separate from my "study/personal" area, which is separate again from my "writing" area (which, to be fair, is a chair).
I could never be your understudy as I am completely opposite. I absolutely hate schedules and when I look at my calendar app on my phone and see just one item scheduled for each day of the upcoming week, I bemoan the loss of an entire week. The only thing I actively work on doing better is making sure I have large blanks in my schedule so I can do whatever it is I feel like doing at the time.
ReplyDeleteEd, there is a balance that I am not good at as I want to leave time for spontaneity but for better or worse, feel like I need to be about things. That is why, for the first time, I am consciously trying to leave blocks of undefined time available.
DeleteI hear you TB. Being stuck at home recuperating has been a schedule obliterator. Med reactions have kept me up or worse, cycling between a 5 hour night and a 10 hour night... ugh.
ReplyDeleteIn college, I would get up at 0300 to do my homework. The little kids were asleep and it was easy to concentrate. Like you, I do my best work early. Writing, working, thinking. It has ever been thus. Pulling an all nighter was only done with the birth of children, or broadcast engineering work (equipment pm was done during the low audience hours)
Looking at what you do, I see 10 lbs of spuds in an 8 lb bag. My schedule is more like an Amazon box: lots of air, not much product. But I'm becoming more accustomed to the limitations. And my schedule will begin to change as I take on more chores (in Spanish, debes... literally shoulds)
Oh, I can imagine STxAR. One of the greatest issues I balance now is back to Old Home ever month - my schedule gets very disrupted. I like regularity.
DeleteI agree it is too much. That said, I am trying to be aspirational. If I could be independently wealthy, I would have the extra time to do the other things...
Is it a fundamental weirdness that I read "short cross sword"?
ReplyDeleteSounds like a wakazashi .....
Not entirely unbelievable! The technique using the two swords in a cross is "juji" - it is not something we practice, but can be used in schools such as Niten Ichiryu, the school founded by Miyamoto Musashi.
DeleteSchedules work best for me too, and I appreciate the reminder. For me, I'm having to decide what non-work activities I most want to engage in, and prioritize accordingly. That's still a moving target.
ReplyDeleteBob, we share the same issue. Even after writing this, I have gone back in and made more proposed adjustments. I suppose my goal, if I had one, would be the traditional monastic split of 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, and 8 hours of "other" (for them, religious practices; for me less of that and more of my life). I have yet to make an even split.
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