Map out a busy season

Look a few weeks ahead in order to feel more calm

While my kids went back to school about two weeks ago, most of their activities are just starting to gear up, with ever-shifting times for things. After a summer lull, my husband has a lot of work travel on the horizon, and I have some. We’re both training for a half-marathon. My 17-year-old wants to visit various colleges.

In other words, the calendar is starting to fill up with big stuff, even as a lot of the little stuff has a high chance of changing day to day. Will there be soccer as an after-school activity at the preschool on Wednesday, or will it rain? (Meaning someone has to be available at the original time to pick the kid up too.) Will cross country get out at 4:45 or 5:20 p.m.? Who knows!

When life is busy, we need to simultaneously do two things. One is focusing on the immediate day. Do you know what’s happening today? Do you have a plan for the day that is resilient enough to account for the most likely changes? Can you make it through today? You’ll rest up and then re-plan tomorrow, so you don’t need to worry too much about that.

Survey the horizon

But I also find it’s helpful to have a rough idea of the upcoming landscape. The unknown is scarier than the known, even if the known is complex. If you were hurtling on a raft down a river through a cave, would you rather have a flashlight or not? Personally, I’d prefer to have the flashlight. Better to see those rocks and stalactites lest one hit you in the face.

So, here’s a strategy. Use a paper calendar to keep track of anything extra you need to think about — particularly anything time specific — for whatever you perceive as the busiest chunk of time. If you’re not sure, maybe think in terms of the next month. You don’t need anything fancy if you’re not a paper calendar or planner user. Print out a calendar page showing the months of September and October. Or maybe some non-profit has sent you a calendar for the year as a freebie. Rip out the relevant pages and put them somewhere you can see.

Take a few minutes and really think this through — because in my experience, sometimes the extras for next month haven’t made it onto, let’s say, your daily work calendar. Or even if they have (good for you!) you don’ t truly see all of them, and see when they’re happening, when you mostly just look at this calendar to see whether you’re meeting with John today or tomorrow. Yes, the extras should go on there eventually, but they may not have migrated from a theoretical state (the knowledge that they will probably happen several weeks in the future) to your actual calendar or daily planner.

Over the next month, do you have any games you’d like to go to? Kid tournaments in other towns? Conferences coming up? Times your spouse will be gone? Back-to-school nights? Times you often go see relatives? Fall fests that tend to happen in your town?

Try to see it

Now obviously you can do this electronically, but I think some of us are more visual than we like to admit. By seeing it all in front of you it’s possible to get a good sense of the rhythm of the next few weeks. I did this and found that while some weekends were pretty full, others actually weren’t. There is time to go apple picking. My husband may be gone some days, but he’ll be around on others to drive in the early morning and I’ll be able to get to my desk earlier. Some weekdays are long but others aren’t. Things didn’t look nearly as intimidating when I looked several weeks ahead.

So why not map out a busy season? Yes, the calendar may change (so feel free to cross things out), and maybe you haven’t totally committed to things (feel free to use question marks!) but life can be stressful enough. No need to have a general sense that there’s too much going on make time feel even more stressful.

In the meantime, this is Laura, thanks for listening, and here’s to making the most of our time.