Schedules
October 29, 2007 by Veronica Mitchell
I love to make schedules. I do not love to follow them, but I love to make them. All those times and lists and charts, declaring that life is manageable! goals are attainable! They fill me with quiet hope.
Az the Husband worked nights for several years. When he began, he could not accept that he needed to sleep during the day. Men worked during the day. If he lazed about in bed while the sun was shining, it must mean that he was failing me. Sleeping during the day would surely produce Wifely Resentment and other dire consequences.
Of course, that is crazy talk. No one can work all night and then all day, too.
What finally helped him accept his new quotidian rhythm was the charted schedule I posted for each of us on the back side of our front door. On Az’s schedule, the hours from 9am to 5pm were marked SLEEP and shaded out in gray. Every time he looked at it, it reminded him that during these hours he not only needed to sleep, but was expected to sleep. Finally, he could relax and get some rest.
I am thinking about making up a few new schedules for my life with the kids. I am always embarrassed at what I have forgotten to do in a day. If I had consciously chosen not to do something, I wouldn’t mind so much. Instead, I just clean forget. A few nice, neat schedules, full of promise, would look good on my refrigerator.
Especially now that I’m old enough to know I don’t need to actually follow them.
I have to have every single activity and event written on our calendar or I will forget. I would forget Halloween if it wasn’t written on the dang calendar.
I like getting new calendars for the start of the coming new year. In those calendars I note everything I should be getting done week by week, month by month…Of course that doesn’t mean I always do it…maybe this will be the year
I’ve often thought of schedules in the same way I treat recipes, as a good suggestion for consideration and guideline, but if you look in the pantry and no cream of chicken is available, you can always use cream of mushroom. It will still work.
I would like someone to make me a schedule and post it on the door and between the hours of 2-4 write JOY NAPS WITH WEEKIDS. Yep. That’s what I would like.
mmmm.. I love shiny new schedules and calendars.
I’m especially good at using them to avoid sleep.
That was a great solution to get Az to sleep. It helped me last month when I really needed to nap every afternoon to have the Loved say that I have to be in bed from noon to 2:00. It is crazy that we need “permission” to do the things that are healthiest for us.
And I know exactly what you mean about getting it down but choosing not to do it vs. not remembering to do it. What kinds of things do you need to get on a schedule that you aren’t doing? Sleep?