Calendar Work

Are you sitting with a blank notebook and pen eager to start something in this new year? Are you holding the new calendar and wondering what to record? Are you intrigued with the idea of meeting with yourself weekly but haven’t a clue what to do once you get there? Even if you have never attempted a weekly oversight time, a brand new year has almost everyone entering “important dates” into a calendar somewhere. Whatever else you might choose to do during a weekly meeting, some calendar work will be a regular part of the meeting time. So while the calendar is out, and organizational resolve is flickering, give yourself a trial run doing some oversight calendar work. Use these 4 C’s to help you think through your calendar:

Coming Up:

• Check two weeks ahead for appointments and events requiring deadlines and/or preparation.
• Enter time ranges for the appointments and meetings to allow include adequate time to get there and return, not just the event itself.
• Schedule times to prepare for events.
• During Week Three of any given month, look ahead to the next month and note:

1.  birthdays, and other gift and/or mailing responsibilities next month
2. Long trips
3. Meetings or deadlines

Get these events into your thinking radar before the new month even starts. You may want to dream about the “fly to grandkids” event circled on the calendar still ten days off, so indulge a bit. While dreaming, write down the outfits you’ll pack, and schedule the last ten shopping trips you need to collect those “few things” for the kids.

Conflicts:

When it is all said and done, though, you are mostly looking at coming up dates for conflicts that need resolved, of which there are several types:

• Being scheduled to two places at the same time is a direct time conflict. Direct intervention is required and the sooner resolved, the better.
• Two people needing to be in different places at the same time with one means of transportation is a logistical conflict. Someone goes earlier and waits. Someone finds another ride. Someone changes their appointment. Collaboration is required and, you guessed it, the sooner resolved, the better.
• Three tests and a paper all due on the same date is a preparation conflict, and possibly a cascading conflict. Schedule the various study and preparation times to make sure you can adequately prepare for each responsibility. What other conflicts arise once the needed study times are planned for? If the bill paying gets set aside for test studying, you now have a cascading conflict–resolving one problem creates another issue to handle. Take heart, once you work through the conflicts that come from resolving conflicts, you’ll be on your way to an orderly week!
• When the menu calls for fried chicken and no cook is home before 6:15, and church is at 7:00, you have a process conflict. Does the menu need changed? Prepared ahead of time? Once again, the sooner you pinpoint the conflict, the easier it is to make adjustments that allow you to win the no-excuse-to-eat-out game for another day.

Combinations:

While you are looking for conflicts, you are also casting an eagle eye about for possible combinations. If you already plan errand trips, you know what you are trying to do: combine grocery shopping while the kids are at lessons, and getting the dry cleaning so you have it for the weekend. Buying the birthday presents (and the mailing supplies!) this week that need mailed during next week’s errand run. Doing laundry while studying for two of those tests. Dovetailing.

If this sort of thinking does not come naturally to you, try to find one calendar combination to help streamline your life, or eliminate a little frustration. I have great confidence that if you combination hunt each week, you’ll find more options as time goes along.

Cycles:

If you have been meeting with yourself and have some cycles of concentration functioning, then your calendar will remind you if this is a “reading week,” a “water before meals week,” a “memorize a chapter week,” a “write an article week,” or a “plan family devotions week.” If you haven’t been using cycles of concentration to help attend to all your priorities, come back tomorrow for some cycle brainstorming!