This is the 2nd post in my series “10 things that will change your relationship with food (that have nothing to do with food)”
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” -Stephen Covey
Okay. First of all. The point of having a schedule is not to make yourself miserable.
The point of having a schedule is to find an intersection between (1) time for things that need to get done, (2) time for things that you want to get done, (3) time for unknown things, (4) time for chilling the f out **because I know people always forget to schedule this!!!
Time and time again I see people set unreasonable schedules for themselves, then feel stressed out because they can’t get everything done that is on the schedule.
Okay- well if you’re trying to fit 48 hours of things into 24 hours- its not going to work- unless you have a clone who works for you full time. Lols. You get the point.
Enter the Eisenhower box. If you’ve never heard of the Eisenhower box, this might just change your life. This splits tasks up by importance and urgency. Not everything that is urgent is important and not everything that is important is urgent.
Here is the Eisenhower box: (image below from James Clear- https://jamesclear.com/eisenhower-box)
You can use this structure to help you figure out what to make time for on your schedule- and what to get off of your schedule :))
I also can’t emphasize enough the power of writing this schedule down (physically or electronically) but somewhere you can see it. There is a very helpful schedule template in Google sheets that you can use (click to see it here). It’s very easy to add rows to if your day starts or ends before the times on the sheet- my day starts at like 5:30 so we had to add a few to the top.
I recognize that making schedules become exponentially more complex when you have a family and kids with after school commitments, sports, etc. While the specifics of the schedule will look very different, I think you can still apply the same principles- and filter all of your daily tasks through the Eisenhower box.
As always, keep what you need. And get rid of the rest.
Time truly is our most valuable asset. It’s the one thing that we simply cannot create more of- we can only learn to use the time we have more effectively.
“You’ve gotta keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.” -Warren Buffet
Even if you just start by writing down what your schedule looks like currently, you’re likely to see time/ activities that you want to eliminate- and then you can plug in some of those things that you’ve really been wanting to make time for.
Another way to approach this is to put on your imagination hat and write down what you think the most ideal ever schedule would look like for you.
I did this very exercise when I made the decision to leave Physical Therapy practice in 2018. I wrote down what I wanted to spend my days doing. And then I spent the next few years creating that for myself.
And after a few years, what I want to spend my time doing has shifted, so I’m working in the direction of recreating my daily schedule once again.
I think this highlights an important point.
We are not stagnant beings. We are complex, dynamic beings with shifting and evolving wants and needs.
I think the sooner we can begin to honor that, the sooner we can begin to find joy in creating as a process as opposed to creating as a destination.
I really don’t think the goal is to figure everything out once and for all- I mean what does that actually look like anyways.
I think the goal is to continuously check in with ourselves and see if the things we have been choosing to make time for are the same things that will move us in the direction of our goals.
Okay. Hopefully you guys found something useful in here.
I cannot emphasize how much having a daily schedule has changed my life.
xo
Tiana
PS. But Tiana, how will this change my relationship to food? Instead of telling you, how about you guys apply some of these principles and let me know if it makes any difference for you :))
