Making Plans

I have a little over a month left of working from home before I need to try to go back to work, so I decided my quarantine routine needed to change a little bit. Instead of using the whole day to work, workout, do chores, etc. I learned I needed to get back into the groove of a full work day before I am actually thrown back into my 8 to 5 (or 7 to 4, in my case). 

So last week I came up with a weekly schedule that saved the hours between 7 and 4 for things I could only do while I’m at work. Work, of course, maybe get a few steps in, and maybe some fun reading and writing since that’s typically how I spend my lunch breaks. When I get home around 4:30, that’s when I can do my workout and get my housekeeping done. Then I typically start cooking dinner between 6 and 6:30, and I have the rest of the evening to relax and unwind. At first I was nervous going back to a work schedule and I was afraid I wouldn’t get all the things done I had crammed into a normal shelter-in-place day at home. But it actually made me more organized because I had to do things at certain times, instead of whenever I felt like getting around to it during the day. 

So how do I actually organize my life and make a schedule that works for me? Well, I took a class my freshman year of college that was kind of college-prep for my specific major. We had an assignment to break down our week hour-by-hour so that we could stay on track with all that needed to get done, with school, work, exercise, eating, and free time. Ever since that class, I have made a schedule like that for myself pretty much every single semester. It is just a great visual breakdown of your week and you can make sure you have time for everything in your life. I personally color code mine according to my values.

If you have read my “About Me” section of the website, or noticed the way I catalog my posts, you know that my values are Love God, Love Others, Health, Subcreation, and Climbing. These five things should make up every single thing I do and say. My entire life needs to go back to these five things, because they make up who I am and who I want to be. My Love God times of my week are when I read my Bible, when I attend (now virtual) church, and when I just spend time with God. My Love Others times are when I spend quality time with my husband and when I (now FaceTime) hang out with my friends and family. Health includes all meals I eat, time I spend working out, and all self-care rituals including my spa days, yoga, and of course, sleep. Subcreation to me is my Masterful Craft (which I’ll talk more about in a future blog post). Being a writer is my main passion and gift in this world, so subcreation includes everything to do with me becoming a better writer. This mostly means reading. As you could tell from my last post, I spend a lot of my time reading these days. For fun, yes, but also to become a better writer. Taking time to write this blog post also goes into my Subcreation time. And finally, Climbing, which to me is anything else that makes me a better person. Trying new things, actually rock climbing, introducing new healthy habits, and just making sure I’m a productive person. Throughout a quarantine week, that pretty much encompasses my actual work and the chores and errands I do for my home. 

It makes sense in my brain to break down my week like that. I’m a type-A personality who likes to have things planned out, organized, and color-coded. I want to make sure that everything I do falls in line with my ultimate values in life. But, of course, life still happens.

One thing I’ve learned time and time again during this whole pandemic is that life goes on, despite the good things and the bad things and all the mapping out you do, life still continues whether we like it or not. It sometimes feels like Corona is bad enough and that nothing else should be happening in the world. But there’s still the racism and rioting. There’s still another tough presidential election coming up. There’s still family and friend drama. There’s still unexpected hiccups in the plan I’ve laid out for my life. So what do we do when all that hits, on top of this already hard time?

We trust in God. There is literally nothing else we can do. We just have to believe that He is in control and that He is good and that He will bring us through this hard time. He will make some good out of it all and we’ll come out the other end stronger. So even though I have this idea of the perfect week for myself and the perfect next five years of my life, I always pray that God’s will be done ahead of mine. I know that His plan is more perfect than mine could ever be and that is more than enough for me. I may get shaken when my life doesn’t go according to plan, but I will not fall because I know that God’s got it taken care of. His plans are not my own and thank goodness for that. So try to remember that when things get tough, when your plans get rocked, when you fall off the wagon of your perfect week and order a pizza when you’re supposed to be counting calories. It will be okay. God is in control, and He is still good.