WHY I NEED TO SCHEDULE MY DAY AND MY WEEK
OVERCOMING MY TENDENCY TO SKIP THIS HIGH PRODUCTIVITY ACTIVITY
I WANDER
If I do not schedule what I will do during the day, I will wander around and, to a relatively large degree be prone to do the less important things or wander off into distractions. In short, I will waste my productivity time and have to do it later - but the price is paid in my having less time for myself. In a sense, I am making a deal with the devil, giving away my life in exchange for the luxury of satisfying my whims of interest rather than get the work done. If I do that for 3-4 hours a day, I not only take away time from life but I also will feel more stressed and under pressure, needlessly.
I DO A GREAT BIG MISMATCH
As my energy and alertness drop from my ultradian rhythm during the day, from my high earlier in the day and morning, my ability to make good decisions and to think at a higher level declines - so I am more prone to make "not good" decisions later in the day about what to do. However, if I have a time set aside in my calendar, I will be able to follow it and use my lesser energy to proceed forward.
As discussed in the pieces on willpower and self-discipline, when our energy is lower we have less psychological energy left and available for decisions. And decisions take alot of energy from the "tank". This is a physical reality verified by the studies. While we want to stay heroic and powerfully disciplined all day, it is not what we humans are capable of doing. To expect otherwise is pure folly and will just lead to (repeated) frustration. Since we have physical limitations, we can only work around them and tailor what we do to the reality of our limits and our energy differences at various times.
("Fatigue makes cowards of us all." And lower energy makes us all a bit less well functioning and accordingly less smart (less brain power).)
Because of this variation we should schedule our day so that the higher level functions are performed when the brain has the ability and energy to perform them. Obviously, it would be stupid to make high level decisions when we are less than capable.
THE ENERGY TO "THINK"
We have a body and most of our brain that is geared strictly for survival. Fortunately, we have evolved to have the ability to reason and to "think". However, the brain only can do that when it is in its higher condition, or the instincts and lower primitive brain will prevail.
When I am highly energetic in the morning, I can make good decisions and I can allocate my time, setting up a schedule for my lower functioning self to follow throughout the day, with it not having to make any hard decisions.
WHAT I MUST TO DO
If I am to be effective in life, I MUST schedule my hours and not waste them. I must not use up my personal time by displacing it with extra time spent poorly. I must get done what must get done and/or what is most important in terms of benefits.
So that I do not break my rhythm and momentum during a time block, in addition to having a schedule form available to use, I must have a place to quickly make notes for use later in making decisions . I may have some limited decisionmaking during the day, but if there is alot of effort required. Later is when to look at the notes - scheduling decision time for those matters that need it.
So, while this is so simple and always recommended, I MUST actually follow through on this - and I frequently don't! That is the reason for this pep talk to myself.
I MUST, if I don't want to waste much of my life, get this habit into place, to schedule my day faithfully in the morning, to place my notes on what occurs to me onto the form also (for consideration and planning later). I MUST look over the week, looking at what I've written down, to prioritize and see how it all fits into my schedule.
In order not to have to reinvent things or to allow myself to become confused or not organized, I need to assign activities to specific blocks of time on a daily/weekly basis. If I "wing it", I will have to reinvent a pattern each time and it will not be as good as the pattern I designed when I was thinking at a better level.
I also notice that certain things just do not get done at certain times, so I should stop assigning those things to those times - it never works.
Since my activities are always energy dependent, I also must schedule in that which creates good energy, which would include early morning exercise (not as beneficial later on) and ways of rejuvenating myself during the day.
My task, henceforth, is to follow through on my daily/weekly schedule and to realize that it is a MUST, for a greater life.
ONE OF THE RESULTS
