Using Time: Opportunism versus Intentionality

Finally a free moment to check in, say hi, and share something I've been pondering a lot lately.  Sorry it's been awhile - the holidays were hectic, getting back into a routine afterwards was a hassle, and now here I am, in the middle of January, in the middle of a snowstorm, and finally able to spare a few minutes to write.

Our Christmas was lovely and blessed, and despite being a whirlwind of activity, it was good to connect with family.  We were blessed with some really lovely gifts, as well, which are already being put to good use (like a KitchenAid stand mixer.  I didn't have a mixer, and wow is it so much easier to bake now!)

One of those gifts was the book Simplicity Parenting, which has prompted the subject of the pondering in question, at least tangentially.  I've got an upcoming post at Catholic Mothers Online where I'll talk more about the various ways in which the book is inspiring me to re-assess and re-balance our life, but in the meantime, I just thought I'd share how thinking about one very specific thing - mealtime - is helping me gain perspective on lots of different areas of my life.

In our home, mealtime has been sort of a haphazard affair.  I do plan meals, and shop for those meals, every week.  But the actual time always ends up in the air.  I haven't even had the excuse of busy evenings or conflicting family schedules to blame.  What it really comes down to is that I've been starting dinner only when I finally think of it, when a good opportunity seems to present itself, and when I am sufficiently motivated to shift my attention from whatever is currently occupying it.  Sometimes this has meant dinner at 6, but much more often 7:30 has been rolling around with an "uh oh, I'd better hurry up and make something."  This lack of attention to a schedule leads to a train wreck: LW isn't ready for bed until after 8, I try and cram in a very hurried pre-LW bedtime shower for myself, and each night it has seemed like her bedtime has been seriously delayed.  Night after night I go through the mad dash of making dinner, dinner cleanup, and the bedtime routine, and night after night I feel totally burnt out by the end of it.

Then I read Simplicity Parenting over my Christmas vacation, and the proverbial light bulb went off in my head.  I starting thinking about the importance of setting a "framework" around our day; of giving LW a sense of routine and consistency to hang onto.  I didn't think so much about the effect it would have on me, but rather sort of stumbled onto just plain setting a mealtime.  As it turned out, the first day I tried it, I decided I'd shoot for 6 "just because".  This meant I started cooking at least an hour earlier than I had been, which seemed like a bit of a hassle, not to mention a sacrifice of some prime recharge time, since I often don't wrap up my part-time job until 4:30, and don't always feel like launching right into making dinner.  But I did it anyway - and to my surprise, magic happened.  I made dinner, we ate dinner, LW ate much better than usual because she wasn't super tired, we had time to linger over the meal, we cleaned up the meal... and all before 7 pm.  At 7, I was able to curl up on the couch with a book, my husband similarly curled up with the computer, and LW happily scampered around the living room playing.  What I discovered is that, with dinner out of the way earlier, there is a happy hour before bedtime.  LW will play independently, or my husband will get down and play with her, and there is actual time to enjoy the evening; no one is hungry, there's no time crunch or pressure.  By sacrificing the earlier time, I actually end up with a better chance for recharge time than I was getting before.  And, as the days go by, I'm modifying things further so that pajamas and tooth brushing happens right after dinner, to further facilitate a quick transition to bedtime mode when the time arrives.

Now, I know this is probably a no-brainer to those of you who already think to have set times for these sorts of things.  And you're probably also wondering how dinnertime might apply to the rest of one's life.  Here's the thing:  I realized I have a very opportunistic attitude towards a lot of things: playing with my daughter, enjoying a recharge moment, dinner, bath time, bedtime, and especially, prayer.  Because I don't approach any of these things with intentionality, they happen more sporadically and irregularly than they ought.  I'm not saying that everything has to happen on a set schedule, but that I'm realizing there is a real value to planning a time and sticking to it.  It's sort of like how church was for me, growing up.  Going to church on Sunday was a non-negotiable item of the week.  We didn't wake up on Sunday morning and try to decide, spur-of-the-moment-style, whether we felt like going this week or not.  It was what we did, and we worked other things around it.  We still operate on the same principle, although being Catholic, and living in an area with at least 15 parishes within 15-20 minutes driving distance means that sometimes we can plan Mass time around other things (like nap time).  But we're very intentional in that it happens every week.

Thus, I'm wondering if, by applying this principle to other things, like prayer, I might not be able to find the time that I didn't think I had.  I'm starting small - with a big fridge calendar, setting times for the basics (mealtime, bedtime, recharge time, and soon, prayer time).  We'll see where it goes from there.  I know being flexible and opportunistic has some great advantages as well: when you have a small baby, life has to be very flexible, and everyone benefits from really going with the flow of what baby needs at any given moment.  Even with a toddler, it's still important to be able to be flexible, and to grab learning and play opportunities whenever they pop up.  But I'm beginning to see that it's also really important to cultivate intentionality, especially in those areas of life, like relationships (with God, my husband, my child, with family and friends) where things just won't happen if they aren't intentional.

Here's to living life intentionally in 2011!

Photo credit to Martin Pettitt.