A Schedule Will Make You Happier

The hard truth

We all have a schedule, whether we would like to admit it or not. Unfortunately, most of us are not aware of this schedule - so it often times includes several unplanned hours of YouTube/socializing/Netflix/whatever your form of leisure time may be. 

Depending on the priorities of the individual, this results in some degree of falling behind on a more important value - often times school or health in cases among university/college students.

On a longer term, students often finish a degree only to realize it is not their area of interest. "In running through the many roads of life, many of us forget to take the time to make sure we run the right way". This results in either going back to school for what we actually like or continuing along a career path we didn't really think about resulting in a lot of wasted potential.

Similarly 4 years of eating out and lack of exercise may result in physical dissatisfaction or insecurities which lead to chronic emotional pains.

Reference

This is my schedule for January 2015 - April 2015. I will be using this as an example for this blog, so I will mention a few details about it prior to getting into the topic.

• Self renewal is the process of renewing yourself on a daily basis physically (exercise), mentally(education), emotionally/socially(relationships) and spiritually(values, beliefs).
• Observe the fact that I am "having fun" every single day of my life. This "having fun" time can be literally anything I want that is in harmony with natural laws of life(explained later).

What is a bad schedule?

The most frequent reason people shy away from a schedule is because it is "too restrictive" and once a person deviates, they usually give up. And that is the fundamental problem with the common schedule.

There are 4 levels of scheduling/time management. The first three are bad and the third is most commonly used.

A person usually schedules on one of these 3 levels (the fourth level will be described in the next section).

1. Notes and Checklists: This basic level is an effort to give some semblance of recognition and inclusiveness to the many demands placed on our time and energy.
2. Calenders and Appointment Books: This level attempts to look ahead, to schedule events and activities in the future for some degree of preventative measure.
3. 1&2&Prioritization: In addition to using the tools of levels 1 and 2, this level attempts to give the idea of prioritization which incorporates your value system and other systems that you deem a good criterion to judge priorities. This usually also includes the concept of daily planning and accomplishing the activities of greatest worth. This level of scheduling is where modern day time management is at. This is what people classify as "too restrictive". The reason is because it doesn't take into consideration the fundamental principle that "people are more important than things". Therefore if an unexpected event comes up (and they come up literally every day), a person will either follow their schedule, even though at heart - the right thing to do would be to respond to the event - which leads to a guilty conscience. Or a person will subordinate their schedule for the unexpected event, leading to them falling behind on their schedule and eventually giving up.

Now the fourth level is a completely different paradigm than "time management". Time is limitless, the challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves with the given time we have on Earth. Rather than focusing on things and time, the fourth level focuses on enhancing relationships and accomplishing results.

What is a good schedule?

A SCHEDULE MUST ALIGN YOUR LIFE MISSION WITH LONG/SHORT TERM ROLES/GOALS  BROKEN DOWN INTO A WEEKLY TIMELINE. IT MUST ALSO BE IN HARMONY WITH THE NATURAL LAWS OF LIFE.

Please refer to my schedule as a reference for the description about the definition above. I advise you to open another window with my schedule there and this blog next to it.

• Life Mission: To put it simply, this is what you want to do with your life. Note that it cannot be something that can be reached, rather a continuous process throughout your life. "Success is a journey, not a destination". With a life mission, you should be able to comfortably say that "if I died at any given moment in time, I have accomplished my life mission to the best of my ability up to that point in time".
  As someone who is actively trying to live in accordance to his life mission, let me tell you from experience that the amount of clarity, self-satisfaction and intrinsic security this brings to your life is unlike anything else.
  Obviously, this is something that takes time to think about. Ultimately, a man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. Everyone has their own specific vocation or mission in life...therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.
• Roles & Goals: Once we construct a mission statement, our long term roles and goals naturally flow. Because I want to maintain a balanced lifestyle, my number one long term and short term role and goal is to myself. The number one person in life is myself and I will put no one above that. This sounds obvious, but I can guarantee every single person reading this blog has been in a situation where they prioritized social pressure/family/events over things they knew were more important to them.
  It is worth noting that my 5th highest priority is related to academics and income. I'm also confident that most people share the rough priority of school and industry with me, but due to not having a clear picture of their goals, many people assume this is their number one priority. It is not, your physical health and emotional state are more important, among other things including relationships.
• Plans: I included an area called plans that summarizes how many hours I'm spending on the things I have deemed a high priority. Really...the arrow going from plans to schedule should be the other direction to make more sense.
• Weekly Timeline: From our short term roles and goals, we can determine where we are in life, relative to where we want to go. Short term goals and plans usually change every term for students. It is easy to construct a weekly schedule once the previous steps have been done. Most people either work or are in school. You can start off by allocating these blocks of time as they are out of your control. From here, you can observe all your short term goals you want to meet and allocate periods of time throughout the week to accomplish these tasks. 
• Harmony with the natural laws of life: If our life goal is to cause destruction and chaos, and we have translated this into a daily schedule of killing people, well; this may be what leads us to the greatest form of happiness, but it is not in harmony with natural laws. A less extreme example is a conflict I'm faced with recently. I want to be a motivational speaker of some sort, but I understand the average income for such a career path does not meet the financial expectations for the lifestyle I want, hence I am probably going to do it part-time. You cannot have one goal that conflicts with another, or with nature. Often times these conflicts will happen over finances, therefore it is important to understand how much financial freedom you want, and go into a career path that you are interested in and brings this much financial freedom.

A schedule is always subject to change! We are not perfect, we make mistakes. It is important to constantly re-calibrate your schedule until it is something you feel you can achieve while still not deviating from your inner sense of happiness.

It is important to note that the fabric that holds the weekly schedule together is the mission statement and long term roles/goals. Therefore in the case of an unexpected event, one can easily subordinate something on his schedule to a higher value in harmony with his life mission and not feel guilty about it, or chose to continue with the schedule and not feel restricted as the event was not a priority to your mission.

Why it will make you happier

Notice all the limitations and problems of a common schedule are gone once we align our life with our values and the natural laws of life. 

Not only do we not feel restricted, but we feel invigorated as we know that the tasks we are doing are indeed the tasks that will lead to the most happiness. How do we know that? Because we took what we wanted to do in life, in other words - what brings us the most happiness and turned it into a daily procedure. Allowing us to be happy on a daily basis and on a long term basis. We took the time to plan out our run prior to committing to the 60/70/80 year-long run. 

It is also never too late. We can tie ourselves to our limited past or our limitless future. As we go deeply within ourselves, as we understand and realign our basic paradigms to bring them in harmony with correct principles, we create both an effective, empowering center and a clear lens through which we can see the world. We can then focus that lens on how we, as unique individuals relate to that world.

Be a function of your values, not of your feelings or desires.
Download my schedule to use as a template for yours.