The Value of Time

This is how you make a Schedule. You write down what time you wake up. (What time you really wake up, not what time you want to wake up. There's always a difference.) You write down what you do the very first thing after getting out of bed. Maybe it's staggering to the bathroom or to the kitchen for the Coffee of Life. If it's longer than five minutes, it goes on the Schedule.

Determine how much time you think you can get dressed and ready for the day. Add five minutes. Add it to the schedule. (You should be putting clock times on here, not '15 min- shower', because then it's just a to-do list.) Decide how long it takes to cook and eat breakfast. Add it to the schedule. Is there somewhere you have to go? Is there a gap between when you'll be ready and when you leave? Put it on the Schedule and decide what you're going to do in that spare time. For me, it's fifteen minutes of writing before I leave for seminary.

And so on and so forth. Write it all down. If you don't Schedule it, it doesn't happen, or worse, it does happen, and then you feel bad for throwing off the entire Schedule. And this isn't a list of chores. Schedule time to crochet (after you've studied, or whatever it is you do). Schedule time to read (during mealtimes for me, which is heathenistic, I know, but I don't care). Schedule time to get on the computer and waste time. Schedule!

I made a Schedule. Can you tell? And I would tell you how wonderful it is except I don't really know yet. I'm treating it like exercise. I'll do it for a month, and then I'm free to jump off the wagon if I want to. It's much easier to commit to a month than to a lifetime. But if you commit to a month, soon you'll commit to a year, and the next thing you know you're ninety-seven and dead and your children are marveling over the beauty of all those old, yellowed schedules, carefully preserved for posterity.

Or not. Probably they'll just throw them away. But don't dwell on that.