Bringing a little structure into my life

Let's be honest - staying at home all day every day can be awesome (every teachers knows this during the summer). Having a wide open schedule to do whatever I want whenever I want is (usually) pretty sweet. But lately I've found that I'm craving structure. I want a little routine. Being the type A person that I am means that having all this free time can drive me a little crazy sometimes. So, I've decided to plan out my days in order to create set goals for each day.

Before my idea to structure/plan out my days (ok, so Will suggested the idea to me) I had a general idea of what I wanted to accomplish in the long run, but I never put any sort of time line to anything. 

I started this week by making a list of everything I wanted to accomplish by the end of the week. I then sat down and wrote out what I needed to do each day. For example, on Monday my schedule looked like this:

9:00-10:00 - go to mass, pray, eat breakfast

10:00-11:00 - run errands

11:00-11:30 - workout

11:30 - shower

12:00 - eat lunch

1:00 - organize the shed

2:30 - leave for soccer

I didn't plan out the evening because my evenings are pretty routine by now.

I was able to stick to that schedule pretty closely, but I think I may have switched "eat lunch" and "organize shed." And I didn't actually get to finish organizing the shed because it was raining. But I did put the shelves together to go in the shed. Now the shelves are ready for all the stuff to be organized.

So far the schedule has been most helpful for me with planning out meals, making sure I take time to pray each day, and (trying to) make sure I workout. Yesterday I didn't set times for everything because laundry is done in smaller chunks of time throughout the day, and my schedule wasn't quite as tight in general. So, I just made sure I completed all the tasks on my list. I also decided that I'd try to leave Friday's open for anything I didn't finish during the week (that means I'll finish organizing the shed this Friday). That way it would be a sort of incentive for me to actually accomplish what I scheduled for each day so I would have Friday "off" to sleep in, lounge around, or do whatever I want.

Next to my list of what I wanted to accomplish for each day I wrote a list of "other stuff" that needed to get done at some point during the week (mostly scheduling appointments, making reservations, etc.). And, as I have time to do these things I just do them. Most of these items aren't time-sensitive.

So far I'm doing pretty good with my schedule. We'll have to wait a few weeks to see if I'm able to keep up with it, but so far I'm liking the structure. And, if I ever decide I don't want the structure anymore I can just throw the schedule out the window :)