Tags
Annie Dillard, quotes, sheduling, summer, summer-time, work life
As someone who has a very irregular schedule I am use to variety in my day to day life. And I like it that way, I enjoy being flexible and allowing some days to take me where they wants to go. However since the summer has started and my regular blocks of teaching have dropped out of my calender for a while, I am finding too many days running away with my time and it is a little bit difficult to get some sort of schedule going.
My days are filled with bits and bobs but with very few deadlines to mark time passing I seem to have let whim lead the way. Now I love being whimsical and enjoy spontaneity and chaos, but with the days dropping through the hourglass of summer too fast for me to catch, I need to ‘fess-up’ and get myself a little bit more organized.
I recently read this wonderful quote by American author and Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Dillard, that made me stop and rethink how I have been scheduling my summer:
A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.
I have never considered a schedule as a safety net, a scaffolding to balance along, a defender against procrastination. So now I am staring at my desk calendar and have started scheduling next week with more structure. I am making sure that I calculate enough time for each activity to give me some flexibility, but not too much to let me while away my summer.
jensinewall 