Schedule With Intention
Oahu is one of those places I have visited on Earth that feels magical. I love the Waikiki area…ever since I first visited this famous strip of beach, I have been in awe and a little bit in love.
People have asked me “how do you do it?’ referencing my constant drive and curiosity, productivity, and busy schedule, practically my whole life. I have also heard, since a young age, “calm down! Relax!” This juxtaposition of admiration for a seemingly endless supply of boundless energy to create and manifest, and the judgment that somehow I was too big, too much, too loud, too excited is opposing feedback coming from 2 different directions, toward the same behavior.
How can a person be admired for being endlessly productive and yet judged for that same quality and told to “tone it down?” Are these statements opposing views, or are they two sides to the same coin?
Time For Respite
While on Oahu I intentionally scheduled – not much. I travel there every July to bring continuing education workshops, as a labor of love to give back for what the islands give me to feed my soul. This year felt different. I knew that I badly needed a respite. For the first time, I would travel alone. I was excited about that, and curious; would I be able to really sit and think, and “get my marbles together” as I intended? I set the intention to re-evaluate my life, where I was going, and how I wanted to spend my time and energy, moving forward.
I had one workshop to teach, I was excited about it, and I scheduled it on my second full day there so I would have a few days afterward with no pressure, nothing that I had to do.
I spent the wonderful lazy days walking, had lunch with friends, explored another part of the sea walls, took a ukulele lesson, learned again to trust my gut, and worked on next year’s teaching schedule.
I visited a cat cafe, the beach, the ocean, ate more musubi than I care to count, went on a mission to find the perfect pair of flip-flops (that’s slippers to you, Hawaii peeps) and worked on next year’s teaching schedule.
I discovered that it’s easy for me, a habit, really, to schedule my time “on” – and the new habit, the one I decided to build while taking this time, is to schedule my time off with as much intention as my time on.
We Are Human Beings, Not Human Doings
This has been a process for me. My mom reminded me years ago that we are human beings, not human doings. Other signs knocked on the door of my conscious mind as well: approaching burnout at times, I tried scheduling one day off after teaching weekends and failed. I tried scheduling holidays and family occasions first – that worked, but led to more overscheduling as I still tried to “do it all.” I tried scheduling one week off a month and was mostly successful – until opportunity knocked.
Overscheduling, saying yes, is easy for me. Living with the fallout when something “looked good on paper” but in reality was too much, is not. Ending workdays with nothing left to give does not help me or the people around me, and does not lead to creativity.
I love what I do. It is me. I’ve been told, time and again, to rest. I would be genuinely puzzled when, after telling people who asked what I did in my time off that I was writing or researching, hearing that wasn’t what they meant. I began to realize that I really wasn’t leading a balanced life. At least not by other peoples’ standards.
It’s easy to fall into the habit of overscheduling, for me. What isn’t easy is structuring the time to not-do. So I had to sit with myself, by myself, and look at my calendar and last year’s schedule, and remember what worked for me and what didn’t. Remember how I felt, where my energy felt joyful or depleted, and base decisions on the internal feelings, interoception, not on numbers and federal holidays.
When Are My Days Off?
I decided to implement my teaching schedule based on the energy of joy and excitement, with a good dose of reality checking. When I was done, in big capital letters below the list of courses, I wrote, “WHEN ARE MY DAYS OFF?”
I went through my calendar again and began to cross out the Mondays after every weekend I scheduled a teaching commitment. Then I realized I had only crossed out from 9am to 1pm. I went back through my calendar again and crossed out the afternoons of those Mondays, too.
I know me, and if there’s an empty spot on the calendar, I will forget that I am supposed to rest that day and start filling in the times. I was so amused at the crossing-off practice that I literally took photos of the before-and-after of the Mondays off in my calendar and then deleted them because I didn’t think anyone but me would understand how momentous that was.
I need a structured life as a container for that boundless energy and curiosity and enthusiasm that has been admired and judged. The vehicle for that structure is my calendar. Silly as it may seem, it works for me. I have scheduled my time off, my workouts, and my meditation practice into my calendar, and now I get to practice those habits for the next 18 months.
The Trap Of Overdoing
I wonder how many of us fall into the trap of overdoing, trying to do it all, and overscheduling? It may be more common than I realize. Those of us that are called to serve, the humble high-achievers, need to practice radical self-care so that we can be of service as long as possible, rather than flashes of bright light that burn out too early.
I visualize the ebb-and-flow of intentionally scheduling time and energy like a jellyfish propelling itself through the ocean. The mantle almost lazily opens and fills with water, and then closes inward to create propulsion. With intentional scheduling, there are times of retraction, as the mantle opens to let in energy, and then the expulsion of energy outward, propelling one forward. The water analogy works for me to think of being in flow with both time and energy. I will never “retire” as I continue being curious, learning, and evolving, going with the flow.
Peace and love,
-Gwen
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