Declutter the Calendar

We've gone through several weeks of Lent where I have been "holding all things with an open hand." I cleaned out three closets. I cleared out my brain.Now I'm decluttering my calendar.Yes, my calendar. Yes, this has spiritual implications.A couple of weeks ago, I realized I was on the verge of burnout. I wasn't quite there yet, but I could feel my life force draining away. I could feel my brain getting increasingly frantic. The joy was being drained out of projects I previously enjoyed. Even the church choir--choir, my baby, my little beloved baby with all the cute-ems--became a hassle.It all came to a head when my husband recently asked me for help with something, and I found I had to say no. Can you imagine? My WHOLE ENTIRE JOB is to TAKE CARE OF ABOUNA, and now here is the one my heart adores being denied a simple request because I have heedlessly overbooked.That was completely unacceptable to me.Whenever I get like this, Abouna tells me to write it all down. Write it down and look at it. Usually, writing out a to-do list helps me realize I don't have that much going on. That my brain is overreacting.Not this time.This time I created a "board" on my bedroom office wall with Post-it notes of all the things I have to do. I put the things I have to do for other people on orange stickies and used other colors to represent other categories of work.The orange stickies took up twice as much space as everything else on the wall. Let me repeat that again. The projects I have agreed to take on that are not related to 1-My household 2-This blog 3-My photography business were constituting 2/3 of my to-do list.WHAT?!That was a pretty horrifying realization. It represents an arrogance in me that I cannot deny. I take great pride in being able to say, "Of course! I will make time for you and your thing!" In Laura-brain, it is unloving to say, "No" to any seemingly reasonable request. And of course I'm the best woman for the job.Except now that I'm looking at that wall full of neon orange Post-it notes, I see that I have been unreasonable. There is no room for another orange sticky. My brain has reached capacity.Now, with all of these projects, where is there time for God? No wonder I get so stressed out when I stand to pray, counting those precious and beautiful minutes as laziness instead of necessary and desperately-needed blessing. No wonder I freak out when I read my daily Bible thinking, "What about this on my plate? and this on my plate? and when will I find time to do this?"Instead of breathing in God and His peace, I let the world crowd in and smother me.That is not okay.So I'm in the process of fixing this, and here's what I have learned.

THREE KEYS YOU NEED TO DECLUTTER THE CALENDAR

Patience:My calendar isn't going to be fixed overnight, and neither will yours. It's going to take small steps and important habits to get it all back under control. It takes two steps forward and one step back. It takes perseverance. It takes saying no to the tasks that don't fit my life goals. It takes delegating tasks to other people (my least favorite thing in the world). It takes forgiving myself when I say yes to something I shouldn't and encouraging myself when I say no to something as I should. In order for this to stick, it has to be a process.Honesty:Sometimes I want to leave stuff off the board. If I don't put up a sticky note with X project, then I won't be quite as ashamed of myself. But if I can't be honest with myself about how crazy I've let things get, I can't fix it.I also need to be honest with how good/terrible of a job I'm doing. When I'm a month (or six months!) overdue on a project I have taken on for someone else, I am clearly no longer the best person for the job. I need to finish what I've been assigned and then let it go.And I need to be honest about how long things take. I have come to realize that a strong blog post--after the draft is completely written--takes 2-3 hours to polish for posting. That's 2-3 hours of reading, re-reading, editing, proofreading, finding images, setting up social media, etc. Yet, in my mind, it takes "no time!" Lies!Responsibility:Sometimes I think of the household tasks as little extras that can be tucked into the corners of our lives. But managing a house is a legitimate responsibility. As a stay at home mom, it's my primary responsibility. It can't be tucked into the corners. When my daughter can't find clean socks because I'm busy fixing other people's lives, that is a problem. It deserves actual, dedicated time, and not just little spurts when it suits me.When someone asks me to do something, I am going to have to say, "Let me get back to you on that." I'm going to have to walk over to my board and count those post-it notes. A true reckoning of the things on my plate. Not the random selection my brain happens to remember at the moment.

WHAT'S THE REWARD

The reward of a clean calendar is... time to do the will of Him who sent me. Time to learn what that will is. Time to stop and love people who need it when they need it. Time to take an emergency phone call from a friend. Time to stop and listen to a little Boy Scout ask for money without being rude about it (I was rude. It's a terrible story.)!The peace of a balanced calendar will allow me to become the representative of Christ in the world, a small beacon of His peace and His love. Instead of a crazy, frazzled mom dragging two kids around stores late at night looking for a last-minute cardigan (long story).Because our spiritual life is about letting go, about simplicity, about focusing our eyes heavenward. It's not about how many things we can accomplish but about the quality and holiness of our accomplishments. "For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 14:17)I have already seen the fruit of simplifying the calendar several times over just in these brief weeks. I'm hoping this habit really sticks.Guess what! I have a hack for the "reward" part too! I've taken to writing down my biggest accomplishments of the day in a daily planner. I write the 2-5 important tasks I have accomplished each day, so I can see clearly that I AM getting things done! Sometimes those tasks are as simple as "hosted a play date" or as terrifying as "served the bishop dinner." Sometimes it's just "ate a real home-cooked meal all together as a family," and sometimes it's "shot a wedding."It makes it very easy at the end of the week to see if I'm actually making God + Family a priority, or if I'm getting caught up in the net of other people's expectations. God willing, that will make it simple, through to the end of my life, to have stayed on the right path.Try it yourself, and let me know how it goes!If you want more input on this topic, I recommend this recent post by Michael Hyatt. Abouna Anthony has been preaching the importance of margin for years, most recently here and here.

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