Do you have a daily routine, or are you planning to implement one in your life?
I ask because I have noticed that, usually, when we have lots of free time, we don’t necessarily use it very wisely.
Currently, I am at the seaside with a very loose schedule. I have all the time in the world to spend on the tasks I would normally postpone when working full-time. However, I’ve noticed something interesting: when you have a tight schedule, it often seems like you accomplish more than when you have an abundance of free time.
I remember when I was in elementary school, I almost didn’t have time to breathe between all my activities. And yet, I somehow managed to balance my schoolwork and other responsibilities while still having enough time for my hobbies and little moments of enjoyment.
This makes me wonder whether today’s typical school and working schedules are really ideal for everyone.
Many students dislike waking up early to go to school, spending most of their day there, and then coming home to do their homework, only to repeat the same cycle the next day.
The working world can be even more challenging. I once read that around 85% of the workforce hates their jobs. A large part of that dissatisfaction, I would assume, comes from having to dedicate such a significant portion of the day to work.
But I think there is a deeper problem as well. Many people operate almost like machines, rather than working or learning from a place of inspiration and taking inspired action.
It can also be difficult to combine a career with family life. I sometimes wonder how women with children manage to balance their careers with caring for their families.
A former colleague once told me that it is all about having a schedule.
And perhaps she was right.
It really comes down to time management—in other words, how we organize our time.
Looking back at my childhood and my years in school, I can see how much of what we learned was actually preparing us for adulthood, even if we didn’t realize it at the time.
One of those lessons is learning how to organize our days.
When you don’t have any kind of structure, so much of your time can disappear into aimless activities. And I am certainly the first one who can be guilty of spending time unwisely.
I’ve noticed that I feel bad when I go through an entire day without creating anything.
We, as human beings created in the image of God, are creators ourselves. Some of us create with our hands, others with our minds. We create through our work, our ideas, our relationships, our families, and the things we bring into the world.
I think one of the biggest problems people face today is wandering through life without having any goals on the horizon.
Some people believe that having goals means losing your freedom because you are no longer able to spend your time however you want.
But the truth is that only a lucky few are genuinely in control of their time.
Many people dream of owning their own businesses because they believe that being their own boss will give them more free time. Others want to build an online business because they imagine they will be able to work from home and have complete freedom over their schedules.
And this raises another interesting question: should working from home become the norm?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many workers experienced what it was like to work from home. Some loved it, while others struggled with it.
Are people more productive when they work from a traditional workplace, or from the comfort of their own homes?
And are most people actually capable of creating their own schedules when they are no longer constrained by working hours or a boss telling them what to do?
Personally, I dislike having the exact same schedule every day—getting up at the same time when the alarm rings, taking the same route to work, having a break at the same time, and going to bed at a certain hour simply because I need to wake up early for work the next morning.
Sometimes, that routine makes me feel almost like a machine rather than a human being.
Perhaps the antidote to that robotic way of living is having at least some days that you are able to organize for yourself.
For most people today, those days are limited to the weekend—two days when they are often so exhausted from the working week that they spend much of their time recovering.
I would love to live differently.
Since I desire to work for myself—and ultimately for God, who I see as my true Boss—I want to find a balance between being dedicated to my work when I feel inspired and allowing myself to rest when I genuinely need to.
I don’t believe that having structure and having freedom have to be opposites.
Perhaps the ideal is to create enough structure to help us accomplish what matters to us, while still leaving enough space for spontaneity, rest, inspiration, and simply being human.
In an ideal world, everyone would have the freedom to organize their lives in a way that works for them.
But today, only a few of us are brave enough to say no to a way of living that doesn’t truly work for us—and to create something different.
Leave a Reply