Schedules

Whenever I felt I wasn't accomplishing enough in a day, during my years of employment and several years after that, I would make a schedule. It would run from six in the morning until six in the evening, broken up into fifteen minute intervals. Exercise, wash, breakfast, walk, read such and such, write such and such, etc. all through the day, with even nap times specified. The exercise of making the schedule was exhilarating. Just think of what I would accomplish! How efficient and productive I would be! After that, it was all downhill: generally it was a miracle if I kept the schedule for more than two days.

Life and my own procrastination had a way of intervening. Because we lived in Jerusalem's center of town, those of our friends who had come downtown would sometimes drop in unexpectedly. I was usually delighted to see them. Naturally we had to have a cup of coffee together, and not ordinary coffee either, but the kind that requires extra time to brew. And just as I was about to sit down at my desk, my children would call. I’d be thrilled to hear from them and of course I couldn’t confine my conversation to them but would want to talk to their children too. After ending the call, I’d notice the newspaper was still in the front hall instead of the sitting room, where it belonged.. I’d stand up while reading it, pretending that I wasn’t reading it at all but simply taking it to its proper place. And when the mail arrived I couldn’t wait for the evening to learn if I’d won second prize in a beauty contest but had to look at it right away, and if any personal letters had arrived – quaint survivals from another age – I had to read them immediately. Finally, my rear end would meet the chair at my desk and I would start to work. But then my spouse would enter my sanctum with an urgent query or request. When she left my office I’d notice a smudge on the window and I couldn’t wait for the housekeeper to wipe it off – she wouldn’t come for a day or two – so I’d search for a rag. When I’d removed the smudge I’d realize that my pencils must be sharpened, and after I’d sharpened my pencils, the washing machine would complete its final cycle and demand that I empty it immediately. After I’d done all that I needed to fortify myself. I'd go to the refrigerator and take out an apple. But of course I couldn’t eat it at my desk – I might spill a drop of juice on my computer – so I’d take it onto the balcony and eat it in the sun until I’d notice a few plants in urgent need of water. And so the morning would pass and I’d have written a single paragraph.

How my life has changed since my days of making schedules. First of all, we no longer live in Jerusalem’s center of town but in Brooklyn. Here, no matter where you live, your friends generally don’t drop in unannounced. We no longer have a balcony on which I can tend my beloved plants instead of working on whatever it is that demands my attention. But most important, I no longer make schedules at all. I have less to do and less pressure to do the little that I’m doing. For the tasks that will take a long time but that are not urgent, say winnowing my files, I allot fifteen or twenty minutes a day. (It’s amazing what one can accomplish in that time, if you do it every day.) For other matters, like the annual collection of material for the preparations of our tax returns, I simply keep working on the task until it’s done.

Yes, I no longer write schedules. They were, after all, exercises in futility, attempts to control the uncontrollable. Yet I miss them. Their preparation made me feel virtuous and offered a bewitching prospect of efficiency and productivity. And, perhaps, more to the point, they gave me guilty pleasure in flouting them.