the flexible schedule. it’s possible.

I’m a schedule lover.
I’m a schedule hater.

But, more than both of that I’ve realized that I’m a person that needs some semblance of a schedule. For years and years and more years I’ve wanted that cool crisp color-coded calendar (how was that for an alliteration?) that I’ve read about in homeschooling magazines. I’ve tried it. I took my day and organized it in these neat thirty minute chunks. It looked perfect.  Really, it did — I mean I had everything worked out on that piece of paper. Laundry. Math facts. Reading those educational books to the toddlers. Cooking my meals. Answering emails. It looked amazing.

Until about 9:15. When someone spilled water and the phone rang and the little one was sick and I was out of coffee and needed to make a mad dash to Starbucks. Coffee is important, you know. So then my nerves? Shot.

I kept trying and trying. Different books. Different ideas. I even tried no schedule — which, by the way, I don’t even recommend. Then I went back to that original beautiful color coded schedule and my Bible And, most importantly, prayer. Slowly, I began to take from it that perhaps it wasn’t necessary to break life into 15-30 minute chunks, but more important to take one’s schedule and daily plan and place it at the Lord’s feet. I needed to seek His will for our family first. Then, for some it can evolve into a tight structured schedule and for others (like me) it can develop into a flexible framework for the day.

That’s me. I’ve got this framework, these ideas that we move into and around. It’s not tight, but there is an underlying agenda. And it’s written out — in case we ever get to the point where we don’t know what we’re going to do next. Which, by the way, rarely happens because we tend to be a family that doesn’t get through everything I planned in those grandiose and visionary planning moments of mine.

Do I do it every day? No. But there are days where we take our flexible schedule and really work to stick with it. If we didn’t that’s okay. In fact, the picture below is of the week before Samuel went to the hospital (where he was diagnosed with Celiac Disease) last year.  If you look, you’ll see that the marking of the schedule simply ends. Life happens. My priority at that time was not filling in those boxes, but rather was my family and Samuel.

Do I grade my year as a pass/fail based on those weeks of unchecked boxes? No. We made up for it. In different ways. We learned different things — about Celiac Disease, and gluten free, and how to run a household. The unchecked boxes? We finished them. Slowly, but surely, we finished. But, family comes first. Always. That detail? That’s an honoring God in the details type detail.

And, one last thing,  I handwrite everything. Seriously. That’s another post entirely, but let me just say that printing and typing and saving (even though I’m a writer) makes me slower. I think I spend too much time looking for the perfect font and formatting — hee hee hee. Blog ideas. Schedules. To do lists. Lesson plans. Planners. Dinner Menus — all done on white printer paper with some excellent pens.

Bottom line for me? To keep moving forward, to embrace the schedule, and  yet still be okay with not being a slave to the schedule. There really is not a day that goes by where every single thing gets checked off of my list. I just keep going while trying to keep a posture of gratitude and joy.

If you have a schedule tip that you’d love to share please add it to the linky below and we can all bless each other with our schedule knowledge. 🙂 Your link will be shown on all host blogs listed above so you’ll only need to link once.