On a recent post, “Dreams & Goals for 2017,” I talked about wanting to find a daily schedule to help me reduce stress levels, as well as balance my time between work and personal pursuits.  A commenter, Mari, expressed interest in hearing about my schedule if I found one that works.  It’s been two weeks, and I’m happy to report I’ve created a daily plan and stuck to it, and overall it’s been a surprising success.  🙂

This is the approximate breakdown, with clarifying notes:

9:30–10:00 PM – Lights Off
I put this first because it is the most important.  I have always – and especially since college – been a night owl, easily staying up till 1:00 AM no problem and even past that sometimes.  I could hardly imagine going to bed early, let alone consistently.  On January 2, I made myself turn the lights off at 9:30, and that was the beginning of the success.  I did not fall asleep for an hour or two, but that was just the first night of the new schedule – it became vastly easier, of course, once I started getting up early.

As someone who finds it easier to fall asleep than to wake up, this was the single most useful change I made.

5:50–6:15 AM – Lights On
I have two alarm clocks.  One is my trusty mp3 player (yes, I am ancient), which I’ve set to play “Clair de Lune” at 5:50 AM.  The other is my Philips Wake-Up Light alarm clock, which has a beep that goes off at 6:00 AM.  Now here are real the tricks:

• Through this system, I get about 8 hours of sleep every night.  Falling asleep at about 10:00 PM makes it easy to get up at 6:00 AM, because I really did get a good night’s sleep!
• The wake-up song matters.  I used to use “Arabesque I” and also tried songs by Yiruma, but the first notes of “Clair de Lune” are just perfect for me personally.
• Every evening, I place my mp3 player in a different location in my room.  In the morning, the little task of finding the mp3 player helps my brain wake up.

Random benefit:  This may sound strange, but I have suddenly started having awesome dreams almost every night.  I almost never had dreams before.  (Probably I used to be too stressed/tired to dream.)

7:00–7:30 AM – Study (Work-Related)
On my best days (and I’ll be honest, this is not every day), I will try to complete my morning routine by 7:00 AM and then get in some work-related study before I leave home.

8:15 AM – Start Work (with More Studying)
I generally start work by 8:15.  My boss really advocates training and self-teaching, so I spend about an hour reading or watching video tutorials.  It is sometimes tempting to skip this step – especially if I’m in the middle of an intense task – but I have found that if I spend those quiet morning hours in quiet study, it minimizes the stress of the workplace environment and sets me up for a more productive day.  

Additionally, I feel more enthusiastic about training when I do it every day, as opposed to saving it all for a Friday or a low work day.

11:45–Noon – A Real Lunch Break
For the first two years of work, I was in the habit of eating while working.  This is terrible for at least three reasons:

1. You enjoy your food LESS when you do this.
2. You don’t give your brain any time to rest.
3. Your keyboard/mouse become…gross (TMI, sorry).

Again, it is tempting to eat while working, but by forcing myself to take a real lunch break, even for 15 or 20 minutes, I am giving my brain the break it needs.  Just sitting at my desk eating lunch, I suddenly hear my coworkers’ chats and other office noise in a whole new (more positive) light.  It helps reset my perspective for the second half of the work day!

5:00 PM – Personal Study Time
I get home around 5-ish, and soon after that is my non-work study time.  I start with one lesson of French for Reading, then I read the Bible chapters for the day. 

Regarding Bible study – I’ve been using the “Beginning” study plan from BibleGateway, which is reading Genesis through Revelation in a year.  They figure out the whole schedule for you, and you can use their calendar tracker to stay on schedule.  I’m reading the NKJV translation for the first time, with a hard copy of the KJV close by for comparison.  I also keep a “Bible journal,” where I write something about the day’s chapters (sometimes a sentence, sometimes a page, whatever comes to mind).

7:30–9:30 PM – My *Favorite Time of the Day
After dinner and a hot bath, I can catch up on blogs and reading!  (Also, Blokus – a somewhat addicting board game my sibs and I just learned.)

In Summary…
Do I stick to this schedule 100%?  No, I’ll be honest I’ve deviated from the course more than a few times.  

That said, whenever I didn’t follow it, I noticed a domino of Bad Side Effects, and in general I was less happy (and more stressed) when I didn’t adhere to the schedule.  

*Interestingly enough, each time of the day is more enjoyable when I follow the schedule than when I don’t.  But truthfully, this time is probably the most enjoyable of them all. 

What else?
Having a schedule means taking out things you can’t fit into it.  You have decide how important it is to not miss that TV episode, or whether you should be watching a 30-minute YouTube video.  For example, my favorite show, Good Mythical Morning, starts up again tomorrow.  I may end up watching it during my lunch break, since an episode fits into about 15 minutes.  However, I might have to postpone watching the new Victoria series, since the first episodes runs till 11:00 PM tonight…we’ll see!