Bar Kochba said:
Does anyone here have a strict schedule that they adhere to, & does it make life run smoother than just taking things as they come? The C's say time is an illusion but since we live here, we have to find the best way to deal w/ it, correct?
Correct. However, I don't think it's an either/or situation -- as with most things, it's a question of balance. I know for myself, without the structure of schedules and routines, my life and household would become chaotic and difficult to manage. As a freelance editor who works from home, I've learned the value of keeping to a daily work routine. I also see the "discipline" of that as a kind of "conscious suffering", applying "friction" against the "little I's" that push and pull at me, wanting this, that, and the other. Within the context of a family, children benefit from the consistency of routines and rules, even when they seem to "chaff" against them. It is part of their learning process to test and push the boundaries that their parents and teachers impose on them; but those lessons can't be learned if the boundaries are not there in the first place.
On the other side of the equation, I sometimes have to fight against a tendency to be "inflexible" about the structures that keep my life manageable, especially when I'm feeling a loss of "control" in some aspect of my life. So that's another kind of "discipline", learning when it's important and/or necessary to "let go" of routines, schedules, and structure, to allow a certain amount of "unstructured time", or even "chaos" into the mix; to "go with the flow". I also have to be careful not to impose the kind of structures that work for me on the people around me, who may thrive and function best in within a different balance equation.
I find that the Work really helps me here, as the effort to be consciously aware of my behaviour and motivations helps to keep me from acting in a purely mechanical fashion in either direction -- i.e. at one extreme mindlessly giving in to to all of those little I's that demand attention, and at the other extreme letting the "I" that wants the control and security of "structure" take over completely. When to be "flexible" and give way, in either direction, is largely a matter of discernment and awareness, and often a delicate balancing act....
When someone comments on my organization and time management skills, I always tell them that I developed those skills out of an essential "laziness", a desire not to work any harder than I have to. Over time I've discovered that the "pain" of applying discipline in the "now" saves me so much more "pain" down the line, in terms of having to sort out the negative consequences of unorganized and/or self-indulgent actions and decisions. In that respect, "time management" is about always having an eye on the "big picture" when making decisions in the "now", and developing the ability to objectively predict the consequences of our actions. A simple example would be the maintenance of my dogs' exercise routines. Many is the time that I contemplate not taking them out for their late-afternoon run, because I'm tired, don't want to interrupt my work flow, the weather's bad, or I'm having too much fun doing something else. If I only pay attention to the short-term, it's very easy and seemingly "harmless" to "let sleeping dogs lie"; however, if I look at the long-term, I know that the "pain" I save myself now by not taking them will not be worth the even greater "pain" of having my evening relaxation time disrupted by restless/overactive dogs, and my own guilt over having neglected them. And to simply hope that this might be one of the very few times that not taking them will NOT result in negative consequences is to base my decision-making on "wishful thinking" rather than objective reality.
