Time is confusing. And always moving. And seemingly impossible to get under control.
Work, cleaning, kids, planning, school, cooking, projects… How do we fit it all in? And what does that tell us about our lives?
In my Type A personality, I problem solve by writing exact schedules with specific times. But life never works on a schedule, and everyone gets stressed.
My husband tends to go with the flow — let’s just deal with what is happening now. But that leads to forgotten responsibilities and stress when necessities start to collide.
So let’s look at the timeless approach. What has always existed and always will exist as far as structuring our days?
Well, the sun and the moon, for one. God put those in the sky “to rule the day” and “to rule the night” (Genesis 1). Even when clocks didn’t exist, people could look at the sun and estimate how far into the day it was and how much time was left. That remains true today and always will.
I would say rhythms, too, are pretty timeless. People everywhere have at least some feel for their day — what they do when they wake up, when they eat which meals, what they do to relax at the end of the day.
Then structure as far as seasons, special days, etc. give structure to time even further, again across times and cultures.
Well, our family looked at our modern versions — our schedules with their feelings of overwhelm, inability to be present in moments, and the stress — even for our preschooler. That’s not really life as it would be recognized by people in most of the world even today, let alone throughout history.
Erin Loechner said:
“Life is immeasurable, with a path that winds in the most unfathomable, incredible way. Rather than setting a goal to encourage the arrival, consider setting a compass to encourage the journey. A compass guides graciously, rather than mandates mercilessly. It offers a gentle whisper that yes, you’re headed in the right direction.”
That’s the sense of life that is wrapped up in the world as it drums along in it’s days and seasons. The Earth doesn’t mind, for example, that the calendar says that it is spring but it has decided to send us some snow again today. It’s the big picture — the direction — the rhythm.
Daily Rhythms
Every day has a beginning, middle, and end — or so says the sun. And that’s about the level we try to plan out our days. We have a first, second, and third, but not a mad dash to finish getting a preschooler and baby dressed by a specified minute.
So, for example, a morning typically looks like this:
- Mr. L gets up and does some homework and some exercise
- Mrs. L and kids wake up — quiet play for preschooler, Bible for mom, feeding baby
- Everyone gets dressed
- Breakfast and morning Bible verse
- Go outside
- Morning chores
- Lunch
This is super flexible — sometimes my husband leaves for school or work at 6:30 AM and sometimes he leaves at 10:30, but we can still stick to this basic structure. Sometimes there are extra tantrums or someone is sick or we are just having so much fun playing, so things take longer. There are no set times to make us feel stressed or too far behind.
The only times that we have set specifically are nap is around 1:30 and family worship in the evenings (right before bedtime) starts by 7:30. That’s it!
We find we have time for cleaning, playing, cooking, homework, and jobs, and feel like we are experiencing a life rather than performing a schedule.
Weekly Patterns
This is one we are still working on, but especially with Mr. L out of the house so often, we wanted to make sure we were using time well as a family for each other and for God’s glory. There’s more to life than the daily cleaning that you’ll just have to do tomorrow or making calls for work that will just need done again next week.
So, we have tried to build in patterns for our week.
For instance, we spend Saturday planning the next week and preparing for Sunday. Sunday is just for church and rest. We have a day that we do something fun as a family and a day that we set aside to help someone else.
This is very much a work in progress, but it is amazing how much more relaxed it is than trying to keep up with a running to do list or trying to analyze if you have set aside enough time for something (although we shouldn’t get rid of that completely). And it sets such a security in knowing how we have decided to intentionally spend time and where we are in our week.
But what about outside the home?
Sure, we can try to build our schedule to be more flexible, more human based, and more rhythmic, but like I commented as we were racing out the door with an unfed baby who had needed 2 diaper changes to try to get to his doctor appointment at the specified time — our society is not at all timeless.
Church, class, work, and yes, doctors, all require specific times — even plans with friends!
I guess our thought is that rhythms give you a better sense of what time even means for you — what it will look like to get out the door on time. Rhythms start to take a general pattern that you can count on and understand and tweak to fit your circumstance because you already know, “Oh, breakfast usually takes us about 30 minutes.”
We’ll let you know when ours has gotten down pat.
Any timeless advice for us? Do you find yourself living more rhythmically or more scheduled?
