Forcing my schedule leads to frustration
I start my days early, many of them before the sun even blinks its eyes open for the day.
Before a few weeks ago this was because my sweet boy would cry in the night, needing me, and I would drag my weary feet from bed to oblige him.
As the months have passed and I felt the push and pull of beginning to get my feet back into writing, I realized the best way to start my day was before the other humans in my house woke up.
Six o’clock in the morning comes very early and most days I struggle to rise with my intentions, but I know starting the day the right way for me creates a little space for my soul to breathe and slowly bleeds into the rest of the day.
If you’re part of my email list you’ve probably already heard about the theme days I implemented last month that break the work up into smaller bits and pieces throughout the week.
Essentially, I break down the work of writing I do weekly into smaller tasks that are easier to accomplish over several days, rather than larger chunks of work all at once. This process worked extremely well at first. (For more on theme days, listen to this episode of The Next Right Thing.)
It took the burden off finishing it all at once and gave me room to really think deeply before getting down to business.
The last two or so weeks life happened, as it does with a baby at home, and the theme days have gotten away from me a little bit.
On days I planned for deep writing (or the amount of writing that happens during nap time), instead, I met up with a friend or two to walk together with our littles in the stroller;
Or, to jog with a friend on a trail that was a foot wide at times;
Or, to run to the grocery store for last minute items needed to make a meal for a friend.
These are all good things that I enjoyed doing and have no regrets for partaking in them.
But I haven’t been in the rhythm of theme days long enough to know how to handle these interruptions to the process, where precious time is sacrificed to nurture precious relationships.
I continued to try and force the theme days to happen as scheduled, and I should know by now that any time I need to force something to work it’s not doing the job I intended it to do.
I created my theme days to lighten the load and spread the work across multiple days, rather than leaving it all to inevitably fall on the same day. This leads to a very stressed Jennifer and a less than stellar quality of work.
As I’ve thought about catching up and the days continue to slip by, the methods other creative entrepreneurs use to get their writing work done came to mind.
Some set timers for 30-minute increments and mark off each segment with the ding. Others simply know they have an hour and a half to work, decide their task, and get to work.
These are excellent methods of focusing on your work when you have limited amounts of time to do it. In fact, I use this same method from Laura Tremaine of setting a timer for 20 minutes to read a book in the morning, when allowed the luxury.
(As a side note, I read every night before bed, even if it’s just a few pages. This is a life-giving practice for me, which helps my mind and body calm and prepares me for sleep.)
Setting a timer to work on a single task for an allotted amount of time is a very effective way of doing things, but I’ve found it’s not quite as effective with a teething 6-month-old who wants to be held all day and jump simultaneously.
I’m not trying to make excuses for not getting work done, but this is my current reality. Trying to push that reality aside or out of view only exacerbates the problem.
The lesson is slowly sinking in that these interruptions aren’t interruptions after all, but opportunities to truly live.
God teaches me many things in the quiet (or not so quiet, anymore), but He has so much more to teach me in relationship with others in a world so much bigger than the inside of my house.
