Last week I wrote about how chaos and clutter can drain your energy. A reader responded with the notion that you miss out on spontaneous events when you schedule your day too rigidly. Scheduling your day is intended to help you avoid the energy thief of chaos by controlling it, by herding the cats.
To summarize what Chris said: the problem with managing your time is that it precludes the possibility of serendipitous experiences because you don’t stay open to all life’s possibilities.
Point taken.
The counterpoint I’ll offer is you can be as likely to miss spontaneous events if you are too busy and don’t have a scheduled life. If you keep your head to the grindstone and dash from one event to another, living a frenetic life, you may not even be aware of the little gifts in life that make it all worthwhile. You can miss the serendipitous opportunities that come your way.
A balanced life means being present and active an all areas of your life, not just one or two. If you get out of balance you aren’t as healthy or happy. That drains energy too.
Since the concept of scheduling or managing your day wasn’t covered in detail in the Chaos Theory article, I’ll do so now. Let me at least explore the intention I have when I talk to you about time management.
Part of the mission behind Live In Focused Energy is to focus on balancing what I think of as the four buckets of your life: health, wealth, work, and play. Within those buckets are several aspects that combine to make a whole, satisfying life, if you stay present with them and “schedule” them into your day.
The time management tool I teach has three sections for you to fill out each day. List the people you need to be in contact with, the things you must get done before you quit for the day or go to bed, and the projects you can work on when the previous two lists are completed.
That’s where I think confusion is introduced. The things you schedule ideally include items from each bucket, not just the work bucket. Scheduling down time, introspection time, and open time is vital to a balanced life. That’s not something I’m as good about as I suggest you be. So, that’s an area I’m working on.
But down time isn’t the only time you can discover those serendipitous moments that make life so enriching and fulfilling. You can find those moments in the other buckets too. It does require you being present and open for opportunities. For example, I have strong feelings about what it takes to be healthy. If I stick to my ideas alone I’ll miss out on ideas that will augment my health. So reading, listening, observing other styles of being healthy lets me follow a serendipitous path that could really boost my health. That’s a big win in my book.
That’s true of your spiritual life too. I’ve been sporadically meditating since the early 70s. Each time I picked the practice up again I morphed it, though I think that was initially an accident. An associate introduced me to the book The Diamond Cutter and that opened me to a whole new way of thinking and practicing my meditation, though that wasn’t the intention of the book. Then I read the Dalai Lama’s My Land and My People, The Original Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet, and I started incorporating some of his Buddhist practices into my meditations.
It was fun seeing how my practice changed with time and instinct. I’m not a religious person; I don’t like organized religion and what I see as dogma and hard rules. I am a spiritual person and value learning different practices and philosophies, all moving me toward what I see as a universal truth — truth for me, anyway.
I was aware a friend of mine meditated so asked her if there were any Buddhist meditation centers near us and she invited me to her meditation school. A school is too organized for me — rigid, rules, schedules — so I thought, so I declined. But, a year later I asked her again, and serendipity stepped in — she invited me to a meditation retreat that was happening that weekend. Long story short, I could only make half of the first day, and that was enough to open the door to the practice I now have. See how I let different opportunities lead me down the path to a satisfying meditation practice?
That’s the way to “schedule” your life. Stay on track with what needs to be done, and allow for open time or a flexible schedule so that there’s room for new things. Allowing for serendipity has taken me to China and Dubai with my sister, taking the train from Montreal to DC with a life-long friend, reading books I wouldn’t normally read, attending conferences I wouldn’t normally attend, sitting with a friend as he died — all of these being life changing opportunities.
What I’ve learned as I’ve played with “hanging loose” and “scheduling” is that I personally need a loose regimen. I feel best, and am most productive, if I get up at about the same time each morning, and take care of the cats and meditation and exercise before getting to work and going on appointments. That means I need to go to bed at about the same time each night so I can get my 7-8 hours of sleep, the sleep that contributes to my staying energized through the day. A life too tightly scheduled doesn’t work for me just as a too loosely schedule doesn’t work for me.
Elizabeth Gilbert addresses serendipity in a talk about the flight of the hummingbird and a life of following your curiosity. I have been so moved by her talk I’m going to address that in a future article.
Regardless of your work situation, you can make as much of your life as you intend to. I urge you to keep energy in your life so you can be your best you in all that you do. Make serendipity your partner and cohort in crime as you live your life. You’ll be so glad you did!