Creating and Keeping a Schedule... Sighs!

Creating and keeping a schedule isn't always easy for me. There I said it. I find it easy to allow the flexibility of my schedule to allow me to think I don't need a schedule or to allow my goals and tasks to fall behind. In reality though if I'm going to accomplish my goals I need a schedule to keep myself focused and on track.

 Last year I realized my priorities had gotten way off track... I would reach the end of each day wondering where my day went. I felt like I was on a treadmill facing a moving target that I could never quite reach. 

I decided it was time to pay attention to where my time was going. I decided to track my activity. I tried a couple of different methods. I tried documenting every activity as soon as I finished, but that was time consuming and annoying. I tried documenting my activities at the end of the day, but I couldn't quite remember everything and it was easy to dismiss this or that or the other because it only took a few minutes. I settled on taking a few minutes at the end of every hour to write down what I'd done the previous hour. I wrote down almost everything including social media, feeding my cats, cooking, laundry, and loading the dishwasher. 

I started to see where my days were being absorbed by small tasks that lead to what I call "5 minutes-ing the day away."  - It'll only take 5 minutes. This'll only take 5 minutes. That'll only take five minutes... And suddenly I was at the end of the day and felt like I'd been unproductive even though I had a long list of things I'd done or at least worked on. It also made it easy to see how much time I wasted. I decided to do this for a full week and then for a full month and then for a few months. I wanted a good picture of where my time was going. I quickly noticed that by tracking my activities, I started doing things I wanted to see on the list, the things I prioritized instead of the thing I could do quickly. But, still, this process showed me why I was exhausted most of the time and why I was completing more of my writing projects.

I decided it was time to start using a task list and calendar again, so I started doing some research. The calendar/task list on my computer wasn't compatible with my phone, so I started looking for an app for my phone, but nothing quite worked the way I wanted it to. After several months I ended up with an updated version of Microsoft Outlook that was compatible with my phone. It works and makes a tremendous difference, yet I still feel reluctant to fully embrace it.

Something about creating a schedule for my writing projects holds me back. I get overwhelmed when I look at the big picture of creating a schedule for completing my current projects. I futzed around for a couple of months not accomplishing anything as I tried to come up with a large scale schedule for the projects at hand. Then I decided to start doing a weekly schedule for each project and move from there. That seems to be working much better for me. I'm making progress on each project and not feeling worried about needing to redo the whole schedule if something gets off-schedule.

I also realized I needed help focusing, so I downloaded a pomodoro app that worked for a little while. Then I found Forest App, one that grows a tree while my timer works and the tree will die if I use my phone while it's working. Now that one works for me!

I'm not sure if I'm doing "scheduling" right by anyone else's standards, but I seem to have found a system that's working for me for the time being. It's evolving, and it's mine. 

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds or even thousands, of blogs, books, and videos out there about time management and prioritization. I've read many books, such as The 7 Highly Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (I read the original version back in the 1990s), Making Work Work by Julie Morgenstern, and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I've read blog posts and watched YouTube videos. I've found helpful bits in many of these sources, but none of them offered a magic cure. When it came right down to it, it was up to me to figure it out. It's up to each of us to figure it out for ourselves.

I'm still figuring out this scheduling thing, and it feels like I have been for my entire adult life. I like the flexibility my work allows me, but I also need the structure to make sure I complete my writing projects including marketing my already published books. 

Now, if I can just get my days down to a reasonable number of tasks each day. How long have I been saying that? I still tend to overschedule myself, but I'm working on it.

Life is short and days only have a certain number of hours, but I have a multitude of projects I want to accomplish in my lifetime...

One of my favorite quotes since college is from Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Night by Robert Frost:

"...I have promises to keep... And miles to go before I sleep... And miles to go before I sleep."  

T. L. Cooper is an author and poet whose work aims to empower and inspire through an exploration of the human condition. Her poems, short stories, articles, and essays have appeared online, in books, and in magazines. Her published books include a collection of short stories, Soaring Betrayal, her Silhouette Poetry Series, and a novel, All She Ever Wanted. She grew up on a farm in Tollesboro, Kentucky. She currently lives in Albany, Oregon with her husband and three cats.

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