Let’s talk schedules. I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, she comes back after disappearing for nearly a month and wants to discuss something boring like schedules?” Yes. Yes, I do.

See, I always figured I was a spontaneous person. Because I am. But recently something occurred to me: I crave structure and predictability. Not in all aspects of my life, of course, but certainly in some. This is a relatively new development that I became suspicious of when I was in post-secondary. I began thinking about it a bit more when I started obsessively organizing my desk at work whenever my brain became too cluttered with the different tasks I was jumping between throughout the day. I realized that I’m fine with things being messy when my mind is clear, but when there’s lots zooming around my mind, I want my environment to be clear. The two things cannot be the same!

I’m also the world’s greatest procrastinator. If left to my own devices on evenings and weekends I can, and will, spend the entire day doing nothing. Sure, a Nothing Day is nice every once in a while, but is pretty impractical on a weekly basis.

The other day I was chatting about this with Melissa and Hanna and I decided to take action. So I drafted a schedule in my word processor. It includes time for work (obviously), food (again, obvious), physical activity, entertainment, personal development (i.e. learning something new, working to improve on an old skill, or researching something I’ve been interested in), an hour of reading (I want to regain my bookworm status and update my Goodreads account)… pretty much everything I would like to accomplish in a day that usually gets pushed aside in favour of laziness and procrastination (and, let’s face it, Twitter). I’m also reinstating my strict 11pm bedtime that I had in school but quickly abandoned after graduation.

Now the tricky part is sticking to it. I’ve written out the schedule on coloured index cards (as seen below) which I’ve stuck to the wall near my closet, where it will be impossible to forget.

I think the trickiest part will be getting up on time in the morning, as I have a tendency to hit snooze until 10 minutes before it’s time to leave, which is a habit I developed only recently and would love to break. It also depends on my dad’s ability to drive me to and from work each day, which obviously won’t be possible during his monthly doctors visits. And of course, the whole thing isn’t set in stone and will obviously need to be altered on days when I have plans after work. I also decided to not schedule my weekends because they’re too unpredictable, but to make a commitment to spend a certain amount of time doing something productive. But in any case, it’s a start! I guess we’ll just need to see how it goes on Monday.

Saturday January 21st 2012 — 12 Comments
✯ Posted under { Goals • Life Update • Personal }