Schedule Necessary Down Time!

Picture this: You are sitting in your favorite easy chair with nothing to do for the third day in a row. You glance at your calendar and find the same thing as last month and the month before—open space.

Which, of course, I just fed you a heaping load of crap-o-rama.                

Please introduce me to a writer who has nothing to do. I’d also like to meet one who knows the definition of boredom. In a life built around deadlines, obligations, and responsibilities, “free time” isn’t a reality—it’s a rumor.

Enter Gabriela Pereira, founder and self-described “instigator” of the wildly popular website for writers, diymfa.com. When I called this dear friend to ask how she organizes her busy life, she didn’t hesitate for a second. Her answer was simple. She schedules EVERYTHING, including time for herself.

This resonated with me because of the way my brain works. If I look at my calendar and see something scheduled on   a particular day and time, I do it. It’s how I got back to my love of reading, spending quiet time with only my thoughts, surfing the net for fun rather than research, and all of this time spent guilt-free! I saw a scheduled hour as a protected hour. Once it made it onto my calendar, it was treated with the same weight as a doctor appointment, which also gave me the guarantee I wouldn’t cancel unless it was an emergency.

So what will you schedule as guilt-free time on your calendar? Spending time on a hobby, a writing session, a phone call to catch up with an old friend? Whatever your guilty pleasure, write it on your calendar along with a time. Include the things that bring you joy, keep you grounded—meditation, speaking your gratitude’s, an afternoon nap. Your mental health needs these appointments you keep with yourself. We can’t take care of others needs until we take care of ourselves.

Writers write.

(And of great importance, they schedule time for themselves.)