I’ve slowly learnt over that what’s popular is not usually what’s useful for me.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.” – Anne Dillard, The Writing Life
I’ve long struggled with ‘keeping’ a schedule and then sticking to it, despite trying a number of different styles over the years- the calendar in outlook, a handwritten notebook, a journal, combinations of all three, ad infinitum. None of them seem to work for long enough.
I’ve remembered only the popular “how we spend our days is how we spend our lives”, part of the quote above. For me, the idea that a schedule is “a net for catching days” is so much more powerful, memorable -and actionable. These others too, depending on one’s interests, I suppose.
- A scaffolding to stand on and labour with both hands at sections of time.
- A mock-up of reason and order
- A lifeboat on which you find yourself still living