The Power of Scheduling

There’s something powerful about committing an action to your calendar. (conejota/Shutterstock)

If you were given a blank piece of paper and asked to jot down the tasks, goals, or dreams you’ve been meaning to or wanting to accomplish, how long would your list be? Whether there are nagging tasks that you’ve been procrastinating on or big dreams you’ve resisted pursuing for one reason or another, could you fill that piece of paper? A lot of us could.

Why don’t we take action toward the things we know we should do and actually want to do? Life and business strategist Tony Robbins has said, “If you talk about it, it’s a dream, if you envision it, it’s possible, but if you schedule it, it’s real.” Too often, these hopes and dreams remain just that—vague ideas that would be nice, but who knows how or when they’ll ever get done. We just never seem to get around to it. If you want to move your goals into reality, you need to schedule the work that’s necessary to get them done.

Schedule It

There’s something powerful about committing an action to your calendar. If you’re like most people, when you make an appointment with someone else, you probably won’t fail to show up, or you’ll at least reschedule or cancel the appointment if you can’t make it. Having an appointment gives you a great sense of obligation and accountability to the other party, and you don’t want to disrespect their time, offend them, inconvenience them, or cause them to form a poor opinion of you. Whether your appointment is a phone call, a meeting, a doctor’s checkup, a haircut, or a friendly visit, once it’s on your calendar, you’ve committed to it.

We can put this power to use not only with commitments to others but also with commitments to ourselves. Often, the goals we reach for in life go unfulfilled because of a lack of commitment to taking action toward them. We might not feel the same sense of obligation to ourselves that we do to others.

If we can break a larger goal down into its smaller action steps, or at least identify the next action necessary to make progress, we can also define exactly when and where we’ll take that action and add it to our calendar. Scheduling transforms a wish into a concrete reality. It signals us to take seriously this commitment we’ve made. It also ensures that time has been set aside for this end and won’t be overridden by anything else that may compete for our time and attention.

Accountability Partners

To further enhance the power of scheduling, you can seek out external accountability. If you can involve others in your actions, you’ll increase the likelihood that you’ll follow through. An accountability partner can be helpful to keep you on track with commitments; they may not be directly involved in the tasks themselves, but they’re willing to help you keep your commitments to yourself.

If scheduling appointments with yourself seems unnatural or silly, practice with something simple. Schedule a morning appointment with yourself, for example, during which you’ll read or sip coffee or spend time doing something enjoyable you’ve been wanting to find time for. Make it 30 minutes each weekday or an hour each weekend that you dedicate to this commitment. Keep it in your calendar and see if you find this to be a valuable practice.

Think about that list of goals you’ve been meaning to get around to working on. What specific actions might you take to make progress on one or two of those? When, specifically, would you be willing to work on those particular actions? Add those actions to your calendar and watch the power of scheduling work its magic in your life.

Related Stories

If You Want to Achieve Your Goals, Stop Obsessing Over Them

2/19/2024

Goal Setting for 2024

1/10/2024