This is Blog Post #2 in my Simplification Series: Take Advantage of the COVID-19 Situation to Simplify Your Life for Good. Today’s topic is how to simplify your schedule. COVID is giving us a huge advantage in this area. The hardest part, removing obligations, is already done for us. Here’s how to keep your schedule sane once the world opens back up again.
The Nuclear Option
We’ve just done what I like to call “The Nuclear Option”. COVID-19 has forced us to literally blow up our lives, knocking everything we used to do off the map and leaving our schedules a flattened (but kind of beautiful) blank slate. Hopefully you feel like you have more time (except maybe during the day when we’re working and home schooling). This is a really good place to start. If you’re reading this post-COVID (please let there be a post-COVID!), you can still follow this roadmap, you’ll just have to quit the things that don’t move the needle once you’re done.
Write Down Everything You Do
The first step to simplifying your schedule is to write down everything that takes up your time, including the things you do for other people. Literally anything that takes time is worth calling out. Go through an entire typical month in your head and think about the following categories to make sure you don’t miss anything.
- Work
- School
- Childcare
- House/yardwork
- Sports/Gym/Workout classes
- Lessons & Other extracurriculars
- Organizational meetings
- Get togethers with friends
- Volunteering
Step 1: Write out everything you do and then write down how much time you typically spend doing that activity for the month.
The #1 Rule to Simplify Your Schedule
Now, pull out the goals you came up with during Part 1 of the Simplification Series. For the rest of this exercise, you only need to follow one rule.
Don’t put anything back on your schedule unless it aligns with your goals or makes you happy.
The only exceptions to that rule may be your current work (because we all need some cash flow in order to check off our other goals) and any care-taking activities that you are uniquely suited for (parenting!). If your job isn’t moving the needle towards your career goals, that’s something you’ll tackle over time, not as part of this exercise. Consider whether you can reduce your hours and use the extra time for something you love.
Step 2: Dust off your goals.
Identify The Big Rocks
The “big rocks” in your life are the most important things you do. I’m talking really important – so important that if you did nothing else, you’d still be ok, mentally and physically. Time with family, other important relationships, and time spent on your health. What do you know? In many cases, these are the things we’ve tried to make time for during the COVID-19 lockdown. Zoom meetings with family, board games with kids over lunch, the struggle to stay fit when the gyms are closed: these are your big rocks.
Ideally, they align with your goals AND make you happy, but many times they do one or the other.
So why do we call them big rocks? There’s a fairly well-known time management story about the professor who filled a jar with rocks, pebbles, and sand.
For those that don’t watch the video, the only way to fit your “big rocks” into the jar is to put those in first. If you fill a jar with sand or pebbles first, your big rocks will never fit. The jar represents your life/schedule. Fill it up with your most important things first.
Step 3: Identify the big rocks in your life.
Write it on the Calendar
The next step is to draw out a calendar that represents a typical month. Take those big rocks you’ve identified and actually place them on that calendar. You can print a calendar like these to get you started. Be honest about how much time you want these activities to take up. This is the only way to see how much time you actually have left. It doesn’t have to be exact, but it does have to be realistic. Also, if work & parenting isn’t one of your big rocks, add that to the calendar now.
Step 4: Plot your big rocks onto a monthly calendar.
What if you don’t have any time left after the big rocks?
Prioritize and remove some. You’re probably not being totally honest with yourself about what’s really a big rock. Go back to the main rule. Are these moving you towards your goals or making you truly happy? Remove the ones that aren’t, or remove the lowest priority ones. Consider whether you should outsource any of these obligations that you feel you have. Hire a housecleaner, a lawn mower, or a cook if you’re able. As a working parent, outsourcing is your friend.
Make Some Ground Rules & Schedule Blank Spaces
Before you add anything else to your schedule, it’s really important to come up with a set of rules so that all of your time is not gobbled up immediately. I’m currently reading a book called Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency by Tom DeMarco. The basic premise is simple: without slack in your schedule, it’s too hard to adapt/pivot when we need to. Life throws some fun challenges at us sometimes and without slack, it’s also too hard to take advantage of opportunities when they arise. If you schedule your entire Saturday, what happens when it’s a beautiful day and you get invited to go for a hike?
So, what kind of rules should you set? Well, here are a few of mine to help get you started.
- Leave at least one weekend day unscheduled. (This is our adventure day or time to just breathe.)
- Kids’ activities: no more than one per kid in each category at any given time
- Sport/Extracurricular activity
- Civic activity/volunteering
- Instrument/language (outside of the school day)
- My activities (except for sports/gym): No more than one evening activity a week (I’ve been toying with not doing any of these lately!)
What are we doing here? We’re scheduling space for our own sanity and because life can’t be planned out ahead of time.
Step 5: Schedule blank spaces into your life.
Cautiously Add The Pebbles & Sand
If you can, you may just want to stop here. However, there should still be some time left to add some pebbles into your calendar. Make sure they align with your goals or make you happy. Make sure they don’t cut into your ground rules or blank space. Be careful here because this is where we tend to get into trouble. Three is often a magic number. When all else fails, add three of these and stop.
Look at the life goals you set. Do these activities allow you to reach all of them? If not, go back and make some changes. Then stop.
Step 6: Add your pebbles and ensure your schedule aligns with your goals.
Try it!
Try out this schedule and evaluate a month later. Repeat the above process until you’re happy. In a couple weeks, I’ll be blogging about how to maintain your simplified life. Next week, we’ll be talking about simplifying your stuff. Stay tuned!