Plan your Calendar
Planning a calendar is more than getting organized or remembering important dates. A good planning calendar shows what is important to you and how you are spending your life. Today’s challenge is to plan your calendar.
Pray about your time use. God created time, and He knows what is the most productive way to use it. Ask Him to help you plan your time.
Use one main calendar. Every appointment for your family should go on your main calendar, but it should also show your work appointments and schedule. If you have one main calendar, you’ll cut out the conflicts that arise because as you were placing a date on your work calendar, you forgot your daughter’s recital was on the same day. Using one calendar will simplify your life.
Choose your calendar. Some people like to have a calendar on a wall or in a planning notebook. If that’s the way you decide to go, you’ll need to choose whether to make it a daily, weekly, or monthly calendar.
In this technological age, most people like the ease of using calendar apps or programs. They are easy to sync between your work computer, home computer, I-phone, and other devices. You can also print out the calendar and place it on the refrigerator if you want.
Schedule events first. Any appointments or events you have should be placed in your calendar first. Then add things you have to do like sleep, dress, and go to work.
Schedule your time. Look at your goals for the year including prayer, Bible reading, household maintenance, and all the other challenges you’ve had this month. Schedule times when you will be doing these things. Some things on your list will be scheduled daily or weekly. Some things, you will want to set a date sometime in the next year. When you schedule like items together, it makes things easier.
Consider your energy levels. Some people are wide awake and ready to do energetic things in the morning. Other people want quiet activities until they are wide awake. While you are scheduling, consider if you are a morning person, an afternoon person, or an evening person.
Schedule personal time and time with family and friends. When you schedule time for yourself and time with your family, it makes it easier to follow through on your priorities. When someone wants you to do something during your scheduled personal time, you can truthfully say, “I have an appointment.”
Revise the calendar. From time to time, you will need to revise your calendar. Scheduling your time will be a trial and error exercise. Keep working on it. Even if you find the perfect balance, sometimes your life will change, and you’ll have to change your calendar. At other times, you might have an extremely busy week or a family emergency where you throw out most of your calendar for that week. Remember your calendar is a tool to make your life easier and accomplish your goals. You rule it. It doesn’t rule you.
Don’t give up. So you didn’t stick to your schedule this week. You probably accomplished more than if you hadn’t had the schedule. I have had times when I’ve thrown out my schedule for weeks because my life was so crazy. But I always return to it because I know that scheduling my time will benefit me in the long run.
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