So part of having an abundant life is making sure you have time to live your abundant life. This means it’s time to get your calendar under control, because if you don’t control your calendar it will control you, and no one wants to feel out of control.
So first of all you need to decide what your primary calendar will be. I use google cal. I recommend that everyone uses a digital calendar as their primary because these days, it’s very rare that you don’t have your phone with you. There may be a situation you’re not caring about your paper calendar. You can still use your paper calendar or whiteboard if it’s good for you, I do. But don’t make it your primary with all your life on it because you’ll miss things, forget things, or lose information. So once you’ve decided what your calendar is let’s make it work for you.
- list what’s important for you: the first way to control your calendar is to know what’s important for you. Make a list of all the ways you spend your time and want to spend your time, then find common categories, such as family, personal, work, etc.
- Block out your calendar: Literally block out everything on your calendar. Meals, wake-up routines, work times, etc. You don’t have to get detailed in what happens, but make blocks of 30min-2 hours of what priorities are having. Make all of the things that happen regularly a reoccurring event. Also, don’t forget to put in travel time when you have to go someplace so you don’t overbook yourself.
- Use some coloring coding: for example, I have a different color for work meetings, planning times, family events, and personal times. This lets me see quickly what kind of things are taking up my time. If
- Share events with your spouse: Almost anything that isn’t my work gets shared with my husband, even if he doesn’t have to do anything, I want him to be aware of what’s going on in our family. We started doing this when we were dating because I had a crazy schedule and he didn’t. He wasn’t used to planning so much, but it helped us know what was going on when and we could plan our time together better.
I also share work events that are outside of my typical hours with him so he knows if I’m going to be late or if they need to meet me somewhere. This also makes it possible for them to plan things in their calendar. Now, this doesn’t mean you don’t have to communicate at all about what’s going on in life, but it helps you function better. - Review day/week/month/90 days: It’s important to review what’s going on and what’s coming up. I try to look at each day at tomorrow, each Sunday at the week, the beginning of the month at the next three months.
The most important thing to remember, if it’s not in the calendar, it’s not happening.
For those of you that can’t quite paper calendars, (that’s ok, I can’t either) check out my calendars from my shop. They come in multiple sizes and are dateless so you can use them over and over.
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