The Four Pillars Of Habit Building Series: Pillar No 3: Scheduling

Happy Saturday Everyone,

I hope you're enjoying your weekend! As promised today's post is all about the third pillar of Habit Building: Scheduling. In case you haven't been following the series so far, you can find the previous two posts on my home page, but they do not necessarily need to be read in order. 

So, scheduling. We give it a few different names done we?  We can call it being organised, planning or effective time-management but either way it sounds pretty dreary and boring doesn't it? 

It might surprise you that until a few months ago I thought only frazzled executives and little old ladies carried planners around and scheduled everything in. This is partly to do with the fact that I had never thought of it as anything more than a memory-aid for forgetful people. Well as Gretchen Rubin has now taught me, it can be much, much more. Scheduling doesn't just help us to remember what it is that we have to do, it helps get it done. 

Now I don't want to waste precious post space explaining the process of scheduling because it is pretty self-explanatory. But what I will do is tell how and why I was so surprised to find that this was my biggest game-changer of all the pillars. 

I had never been an organised person (seriously, ask my mother, my teachers, even my best friend would not have vouched for being organised before this year). My brain was a master at procrastinating. For example, I would put the washing on, then think I deserved to sit down for a tea break, soon, I would be reading something and not want to stop. The result? The washing never made it to the dryer and had to be washed all over again! 

Does any of this sound familiar? I think most of us have probably had days like this before where we bounce from one thing to the next and end up frazzled wondering why we haven't completed the tasks we wanted to get done. 

So how does scheduling help? Well, first things first, the brain loves to go off on tangents, it's this huge, wonderful, creative, tangled web that will go in a thousand different directions if we let it. By scheduling in the habit we want to change, we not only set an intention to complete it, we also provide structure. Have you ever noticed how most people will complete a list of tasks much quicker if someone gives them to us in order, instead of leaving us to spend time wondering which we should do first?

To make something a habit, we don't want to spend time thinking about doing it. We want to drill it in to our day until it becomes a part of our subconscious. Let's say you have a non-vital medication, such as a multi-vitamin, that you know you should be taking but are not great at remembering to do it. Or maybe you talk yourself of going downstairs to do it once you're ready for bed because it seems like too much extra effort? 

If taking that medication was on your schedule, you would not only remember to take it but it would force you to look at how you could be better at actually making yourself take it. I call this removing the roadblocks. When we have a list of things to do it is natural to analyse the best way to group things together to get them done. For example, you may decide to keep your multi-vitamins by your toothbrush so that it removes the roadblock of going to extra effort to take them each morning and evening. 

Scheduling is a crucial pillar because it is the one that sets your habit building in motion by creating a concrete intention as well as leading to you looking for ways to remove roadblocks and make your life easier. 

I should also add that this Pillar is the one for which I found that the foundation (see post 1) was most necessary for being successful in. If you do not have a good foundation, then you are much less likely to be able to keep to any schedule you make.

You don't need to buy an expensive planner, though I myself have an addiction to pretty stationary, you can use the calendar app on your phone or good old fashioned pen and paper. Either way I highly recommend you grab your beverage of choice, sit down this weekend and make a schedule. In case your still on the fence, I have included a list below of the examples of scheduling I used and how the rolling effect that they have made me more effective. 

Scheduling Example: To do list, with top 3 priorities
Rolling Effect: Having a list to work down meant that I completed the tasks I finished and got things such as housework and errands done in much shorter amounts of time, leaving me with more of my day to focus on the things I enjoy.

Scheduling Example: Meal Planning
Rolling Effect: I spent less time at the supermarket as I was able to shop systematically without wondering what I fancied. I also saved money and ate much more healthily as I wasn't grabbing snacks in between meals or buying things that I didn't really want. 

Scheduling Example: Calender
Rolling Effect: By no longer relying on Facebook to remind me of events and birthdays I stopped finding myself running out last minute to get things I had forgotten about, I planned my washing so that I knew what I wanted to wear and made sure it was available whenever I had an event as well as leaving myself time to do things like paint my nails and give my hair a real blow dry. 

None of these are particularly life-changing for me but when you add them up the amount of stress and anxiety reduction that has come from doing these things. Plus, Scheduling is a sure-fire way to introduce Pillar no 2 that we talked about yesterday. If you have a schedule written down then that gives you an automatic way to monitor yourself when no one else is around.

Tomorrow I will be posting the final installment of the habit building series so keep an eye out for Pillar No 4. In the meantime let me know in the comments what types of scheduling you tried and how it improved things for you.

As always I hope you have a happy, healthy and productive day and I will see you very soon.