Support Tip - Using Routinely - yes, Plants are different than Bills

A question came up recently about how to use Routine tasks in Life Balance. The concern was that when you check off a routine task, the next interval begins. The impression was that this can make the next occurrence "overdue" from when you first set up the task, because "Routinely" always moves forward from where you are. Yes, this can have unwanted consequences if you use it for cases where it doesn't apply.

Routinely is not intended for tasks that really do have to happen on particular days. Bills have due dates, and the dates matter. Taking out the Trash won't help if you don't do it in the early morning on the day the trash truck is due to swing by! Don't use Routinely for repeating tasks where you care what day and time the task actually gets done. You want those to be set up to repeat by calendar, and you can do that in various ways.

However, watering your plants is terrific for routinely, because if you water them too frequently they will not thrive. You do want to water them "every so often" and it is often not too critical if you miss a day because you have something better to do. Once you check off watering the plants, you want to check back with them again in three days to see how they are doing. Excellent use for Routinely. Lots of household chores fall into the routinely category.

Routinely is DESIGNED for the squishy, imprecise stuff of life. One of the advantages of using Life Balance is to not over schedule your time, and to maintain as much discretionary time as possible. Scheduling tasks to be done Routinely can help you to stay flexible when you can, and to carve out more spare time to do the things that are meaningful to you! The temptation can be to make everything a routine task. Many kinds of tasks do qualify to be put into the routinely category, but it is not for everything.

Tasks that could be good candidates for Routinely might include:

Household chores (laundry can wait a day, but maybe not a week!)
Some kinds of self care (walk in the park, go for a run, eat healthily)
Some kinds of self paced studying (learn to tie knots)
Social life (let's go out to see a movie every so often)
Calling your family (don't lose touch!)

Repeating tasks that might be better scheduled by calendar:

Paying the rent
Car maintenance
Setting up dentist and doctor's appointments

Which technique you choose depends largely on the likelihood and the consequences of missing the task.

Note that exercise could be a routine task, or not, depending on how you approach it for yourself. Free form exercise can be a good routine task. But if you are scheduled with a personal trainer, or a class, then you want to use the calendar for that instead. Or if you are in training, you may want to exercise according to a firm schedule on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That is different than wanting to exercise every other day, more or less. The rules and guidelines reflect your personal desires, goals and interests. Choose the appropriate Life Balance technique to match both the task, and your level of responsibility, obligation or commitment to the task.

You may even be able to use routinely for paying bills if you are the type of person who pays every bill as it comes in as part of handing your mail. If you are depending on a garden or farm to feed your family, watering the plants may require a very careful schedule. Your habits and circumstances and the context of the task are not "theoretical." They are real and practical and depend on YOU. You decide. You take responsibility. You take action.

Copyright @ 2009, Catherine E. White, permission is granted for this article to be redistributed and shared with others in its entirety as long as links and attribution are maintained.
Catherine E. White is president of Llamagraphics, Inc., developer of Life Balance™ software for Mac OS X, Windows, Palm OS and iPhone. Life Balance provides a structure for your goals, projects and tasks that is priority driven, so you can to make better decisions about how to use your discretionary time. To learn more, please visit http://www.llamagraphics.com/