Finding the Right Rhythm

I have a Tuesday list. And a Wednesday list.  In fact, I have lists for most days.  These lists help me be a good team player, help me design the flow of my time, and ensure that my priorities are met.  Here’s what Tuesday looks like:  

Each day I include work stuff like tracking worship and dinner attendance, designing the community email, creating Facebook events, writing the liturgy and formatting the bulletin, creating the liturgist script, and preparing for the next week’s bible study.

There’s family life stuff like Daily 15, which is when we set the timer for 15 minutes and clean as much as we can.

There’s my self-care time of a 30-minute walk.

And there are my volunteer responsibilities of scheduling for the Art Museum and writing the article for the Sellwood Middle Schoool Foundation

I have a running list of other tasks for many aspects of my work and life, but this is the stuff that always gets done on Tuesdays. Except when it doesn’t. This week I was at a retreat, so some of the Tuesday things became Thursday things and the 30-minute walk did not happen. It’s not so much about having to get things done on a certain day, but establishing a rhythm to the week.

I’ve found, especially in new start work, that it can be helpful to have some structure.  It’s a lesson I’ve come to over time. Some things are due on Tuesdays so that’s when I do them.  Some things help other people to do their jobs, like our Music Director.  She has more time to select her offertory and having the bulletin before choir practice means she can share the hymns and songs with them on Thursday night. As I learn and grow in this work the lists change.  They are, after all, just tools to help me manage all the pieces of work and life.

There’s a lot more time in  Tuesday than the tasks on my Tuesday list take up.  That means there is lots of room for conversation, prayer, journaling, dreaming, dancing in the kitchen with my husband, listening to the child tell me about her day, cooking dinner, and soaking up all the beauty God has to offer in this life and work.

-Eilidh