Calendars, Scheduling and Syncing…

I have previously confessed my fascination with calendars and schedules and my inherent desire to be “organized”. I must now confess that sometimes I feel this is an unobtainable, impossible, “pie in the sky” wish, goal and dream. Trying to reduce life into one hour blocks of time – and keeping track of it all – doesn’t seem realistic and do-able at times. And I am just a busy single woman – I don’t know how moms of active children do it. I read my friends’ blogs and Facebook comments about forgotten recitals, missed homework deadlines, scheduling conflicts between football games for their sons and dance classes for their daughters – and think, “Whew! And I thought my scheduling mishaps were frightening.”

I must not be the only one who faces this challenge. After all, there is a million dollar business out there to help us over-scheduled people try to keep track of what is going on (or should be going on) in our lives. You have paper calendars, you have online calendars, you have Outlook and Google calendars, DayTimers and appointment books and planners and random scraps of paper marked “to do” … the list goes on and on. And I think I have tried all of these methods – sometimes simultaneously – and still dropped the ball on a lunch date or a play or a deadline at church or work. Because what good is it to have a social engagement noted on your work calendar when you are at home? And vice versa. So, I am striving to have one main calendar that I can go to as my reference, my source, my guide.

Right now, my calendar of choice is my Google calendar. In theory, once I get all my other calendars linked up to this calendar: all of my appointments, social engagements, church duties, birthday reminders, financial deadlines – all the minutiae of my life – will be available in one place and accessible no matter where I am. See, Google will sync to my Outlook calendars at home and work. It will sync to my new Motorola Cliq phone. It will not sync with the big paper wall calendar at home, but theoretically, everything on the wall calendar is in one (or more) of my Outlook calendars anyway. That’s the theory – let’s see how it works…once I get it set up. Yeah, that’s the hard part.

It gets a little overwhelming – juggling work and home and church and a social life. Coordinating my appointments and the appointments of my mother. Carving out time to meet with family and friends and to grow my personal relationships. Finding time for devotion and study of God’s Word. And then there are the things that never (or rarely) make the calendar that still have to be done: grocery shopping, laundry, cooking, cleaning … the list goes on and on.

I wonder if God has a “master calendar”. Since He knows all things, I doubt that His is written down anywhere, but if He did, how big would His calendar have to be? And what would be on it? “Send a rainbow to Atlanta to remind My child of My promise”; “Set the sun and moon and stars in place”; “Respond to prayer requests”; “Go to the operating room and perform a miracle of healing”; “Go to the funeral home and pour out comfort and peace”; “Keep the planets moving in their rightful orbits in space”; “Prepare mansions for all My children”; and somewhere on the calendar, “Go and get My children and bring them home” …

You know, when I think about God’s calendar – mine doesn’t seem so hectic and overwhelming anymore. What about yours?

Be blessed.