Designated Days

This year, 2024, one of my focus areas is time management. Not just saying I will do better on time, but really focusing on it and praying about it. The Lord continues to open my eyes to various things that I can do better at, as it relates to time management. One of those things is incorporating designated days. Days where we generally focus on certain things.

Life can be a lot at times. This is what gets us.

We have so much to do, and we often feel there is just not enough time to do it all. The reality is that we all only have 24 hours each day, 7 days a week, a few weeks a month, and 12 months a year. Just like that, there’s a year. Add in the pace of time, we can see how the years fly by and it seem hard to do the things that need to be done.

Designated days will allow us to look at our time and designate a focus area for the day.

We must first start with identifying our priorities. We find our priorities by assessing our responsibilities, or how we’re spending our time. Sometimes we aren’t dedicating time to our priorities. Designated days can help with that.

For instance, if you find yourself having long work days, it is our responsibility to designate a day for family. Also, it’s not so much about a whole day, but rather us being intentional about our time. Maybe we designate a day, or maybe we designate a period of time during the day. We all have various life circumstances. It’s less about an entire day, and more about being intentional to designate time to all of our life responsibilities.

In order to do this, we first have to list out our responsibilities. Here are some to consider:

Spiritual health [praying, reading God’s Word]
Physical health [eating well, being active]
Mental health [consuming good content, healthy relationships]
Marriage [time together, attention, love]
Work [meeting deadlines, work relationships, projects, school]
Personal business [bills, appointments, mail, money management]
Children [attention, homework, appointments, medicine, hair, etc.]
Cleaning [housework, organizing, laundry, closets, projects]
Relationships [friendships, family, church, etc.]
Self care [rest, relaxation, grooming, etc.]

These are 10 areas of life that we all may be able to relate to. This is where we can work from as we focus on designated days. A healthy life is a balanced life. Though we may all have natural inclinations, we don’t want to neglect important areas of life due to our hyper-fixation on one area. Many of us may have to work to keep work in check, and not allow it to consume us. Another big one is not putting the kids above marriage. It takes intention to keep the family structure and order in place.

As we focus on incorporating designated days into our schedule, stay flexible. Things may change. Seasons change. As they do, we want to be able to adjust and make any necessary adjustments. For instance, there was a time when Sunday was a designated rest day for me. Now, that’s not the case. I have to be a little more productive on Sunday in order to stay on top of my responsibilities.

So, I encourage you to assess your priorities as well as your calendar today, to see how relying on designated days can help you to live more prioritized, organized, and balanced.

Blessings!

Read Happy New Year: 10 Tips to Start 2024 Strong