More Than a Schedule

Your schedule is less about what you are doing and more about who you are becoming. 

-Bill Hybels

We all have schedules to maintain and tasks that move us through each week. There are dozens of important items and appointments and it doesn't take long before we have completely filled up our days.

Being busy isn't necessarily a bad thing (at least not all the time), but we do need to keep the right perspective on it. Are we aligning our tasks and calendars just to get things done or do we intentionally structure our agenda to build towards a better future? This isn't always an easy balance to maintain, but we feel less frustrated by our days when we see how it helps us grow into something more.

Know Your Pace

I use an app on my iPhone when I am running to help me track my mileage, running time, and intervals. I have it set to tell me the pace I have set at the end of each mile. This helps me to determine if I am running at my desired pace and if I need to make adjustments based on the total distance I am running. If I am only running 2-3 miles, I know I can set out at a much faster pace because I don’t have to maintain it for long. If I have a longer run planned for that day, I know I have to be careful not to set out too fast or I won’t be able to sustain my efforts over time.

Don’t we do this in other parts of our life? We set a pace that is too intense for us to maintain and end up crashing. We either reach the point of complete exhaustion, engage in unhealthy practices to try to keep up, or suffer from a breakdown of some type. While I believe we need to push our pace some to grow, we also need to make sure we aren’t going so fast we can’t sustain it. Pushing past our limits is possible (and even beneficial) in the short term, but a frenetic pace and maximum intensity isn’t healthy over long periods of time.