#scheduleit

This blog is not going to be all about organization...as you can see I have written about a variety of things so far. I want this blog to be more of a place to share things that are relavant in my life, things that I am learning, overcoming, or am challenged by or various encouragement for my readers. I hope that through my experiences, I can impact or motivate someone.

Today I want to talk about the impact of scheduling things that are a priority to you. I can bet that there are a lot of things that you "prioritize" or that you would say are "important" to you. Think about that for a minute. What are some things that you would call a priority in your life?For me, there are several, like my relationship with Jesus Christ, my marriage, my job, my family, my business, the Bachelor (not ashamed), health and fitness and tidiness. Now think of things that are important to you. For me those are my finances, my husband, peace, sleep, joy, relationships, my quiet time in the morning, my mental health and music. How many of your priorities actually make your "to do" list each day? How many of them do you accomplish each day? Is it hit or miss? We all have things that you find important and wish you could accomplish but you can't find time for, hence, not as much of a priories. Just because you say something is a priority, doesn't mean that you will make it one. This goes back to the saying that actions speak louder than words. Enter scheduling. Learning that I cannot always do what I intend to, but I can schedule it and make time for it is ground breaking. I have learned what is realistic to fit into a day. I have learned how to be more efficient with my time. I have learned that if I follow my calendar, I stay on track. I have learned not to "snooze" and I have learned what time of day works better for me to tackle certain priorities.

Here are the things that I do on a daily basis that communicate my priorities: wake up at 4:30 am to get to the gym, god time- usually while I workout (reading the bible, prayer, listening to sermons), packing my lunch, eating breakfast, making sure Lula is fed and has used the bathroom, Instagram, call mom on my way to work, do my job, Instagram, podcasts while I work, dinner with Sam, recap the day together, Instagram, TV, bed by 8:30 pm to get 8 hours of sleep, repeat. As you can see the things I allow in to my life or the things I give my precious time to ARE my priorities. I give a lot of my time to IG. Some of it is work related, but some of it is a waste of my time. I would rather have that time back to focus more on my marriage or my mental health. IG would probably plays a part in my anxiety, yet I just listed above that my mental health was important to me so...double standard? Yeah, I'm working on that. (I will cover some boundaries that Sam and I have in place to safeguard against distractions in another blog post). These priority lists are going to look different to everyone. There aren't right or wrong priorities. There are just different priorities. I would encourage you to take inventory on what you make a priority and evaluate if these items are serving you. If they are, keep them. Better yet, go one step further and schedule them!

Mornings. This is my happy time. I get up before the sun because I want to set myself up for success. I have been doing this for a couple of years now and I have notices a HUGE difference. I know that my brain is very active and imaginative in the morning. I think a lot of thoughts, I have a clear mind. It's a great time for me to journal or reflect. I utilize my morning the fuel my body at the gym which gives me tons more energy, then breakfast so that I can fuel my brain and body to carry me through my morning routine and my quiet time with the Lord so that I can focus my heart of what is important. I let God, instead of other people, speak to me about who I am and who I am called to be. I let him fill be with joy even when I feel anxiety about going to work. I let his peace come over me because I need it so desperately when life is hard and I am forced to make major life decisions. I listen to my worship music while I shower and get ready so that I am in a constant state of gratitude. I didn't always used to do this. I wouldn't have the time, aka I prioritized other things. I would be wishing that I had more hours in a day when my problem wasn't the amount of time I had but how I spent it. I had to shift priorities. Sleep is super important to me, but I had to sacrifice what felt good and get up early to make these priorities happen. I still get 8 hours, I just have to be better about getting to bed on time and not feeling lazy and giving into the snooze button.

The calendar. My I-phone calendar runs my day! I have learned to utilize this technology to help me. It tells me when to pray for Sam, every morning at 6:55 am. I know this works for me, because I have been to the gym, had my god time, showered and am finishing my makeup while I listen to my worship music. My calendar tells me when I need to answer certain emails, or handle certain tasks in order to provide excellent service to my client. It tells me when to pick up dog poop before trash day. It tells me when to blog, post a quote, before and after pic, folding tips, etc. It tells me when to go to the gym on Saturdays and then walk Lula. It tells me when to do my weekly Lasting App lesson with Sam so we can work on our marriage. It tells me when to have date night, and when to plan for date night. These are all things that I mentioned as being a priority but so many times weren't accomplished because I hadn't scheduled them. These are just a few of the behind the scenes items that I put on my calendar so that I will get more accomplished. Once you know what your priorities are and you have identifies the ones that are serving you that you want to keep, start scheduling them! I would say one of the most essential parts of scheduling is the reminder setting!! You can set up alerts (on i-phone) that tell you ahead of time that this event is coming up. For example: for our bi-weekly date night, I set an alert 1 week ahead so that I can start getting an idea of where we want to go or what we want to do. This leaves room for reservations, if necessary, and also talking to my husband to make sure we have the same expectations for the upcoming night out. I also set another reminder for the day before so that I am sure not to forget. Life hack: add your spouse as an invitee so that you both get the notifications and blocks the time off on both of your calendars.

I am still practicing scheduling and have more priorities that I want to put on the calendar. I hope that some of you will give this a try too and let me know how it goes! I have had pretty good success with it so far and it has definitely made planning out my week that much easier. It also has been a great tool in my marriage so that Sam and I both feel on the same page and we are aware of the things each other has planned without having to memorize each other schedules or remember every detail (I can't stress enough how much the alerts come in handy for this reason alone!). Give it a try!

More to come!

xoxo,

Kaley