I like love adore routine—pattern, theme, narrative, habits, plans, schedules, cycles, calendars, repetition. I am forever creating new systems for managing, using, and thinking about time and how to use it. I love planning so much that implementing a plan and following through on it seems disappointing—if I create a schedule and that schedule works, then I won’t get to create another one. That doesn’t sound like fun.

But one system that helps me calendar my time and create a daily narrative that has been consistent in my planning is time intentioning. Time intentioning is a system—really a metaphor (I like those too, but that is another story)—I created a number of years ago that gives identity and personality to time and allows me to use that metaphor to free time and ease conflict in my life. And it does actually work when I do it.

Today is a new moon. The first new moon of 2021. And new moons are about setting intentions, about making new plans, about committing to routines that allow us to grow & change, to wax and wane. In this potent turn of a year, I want to write something like “coming out of the dark of 2020 and into the light of 2021” but that doesn’t make any sense with the new moon—the new moon is the dark. Invisible and lightless. We cannot see the new moon, but we know (and feel) it is there. It is a time of faith, trust, & preparation.

What do we have trust in today? Perhaps not a lot. We see so much distrust in the world, gawk at it in disbelief, and cannot picture it ever changing. But seeing is the problem. We need to stop looking and start believing something new is coming into being.

In our world and in us.

For the last month (since the last new moon) I have been revisiting and reinvesting in my time and what I am doing with it. All my time intentioning is really a scaffold, an armature on which to build something new. Perhaps as a scaffold, it's ok for it to eventually fall away until I need it again for renovation or repair. As an armature it's ok for it to be hidden--I know it is there to support my development. Kind of like the moon. And right now, I need it again.

Just as the moon has phases, so does the day. And those phases ask us to consider our time through different lenses, different metaphors. New for 2021, I have questions for myself that align with each phase of my day. Every morning, I write out brief answers (a few words, perhaps a sentence) to these questions in the daily schedule section of one planner (of my eight) in which I don’t actually plan. I just use the times as a guide to create an umbrella (solid and protective) or net (porous and freeing) for those parts of the day. The times represent the part of the day in which I try to really focus on acting on that question and its answer. Here is my time intentioning narrative:

5am-8am: intention. What good shall I do today? What is my contribution?

I borrowed the first question from Benjamin Franklin. He started each day by asking himself what good he was going to put into the world. It’s a fair question, and he did a lot of good. I use my early morning, when it is still dark & when no one else is awake, to prepare myself to contribute good to the day through reading, writing, meditation, and exercise.

8-11am: action. What can I do to make today great?

Pretty sure I borrowed this question, too, but that’s okay—it’s something we’ve all asked ourselves. In this part of my story and in this part of my day I take steps, usually small steps, that I believe will make my day better. This is not where I write goals or things I plan to accomplish—this is where I write actions that will make those goals easier to attain. I might have a goal of publishing a blog today, so this is the time that I set aside to write. And brew a new pot of coffee.

11am-1pm: communication. Words. What do I need to hear/say today?

Communication is an exchange--it’s not just about talking and it's not just about taking. We have to experience both sides of the process for a conversation to happen. In this part of my plan (and my day) I think about and act on words. The other day, I wrote down that I had to make an apology to my daughter for the sharp words I said. It doesn’t mean I waited until lunchtime to do it; I just used this time in my day’s intentioning to note that.

1-4pm: culmination. What are my priorities for the day? What do I want to achieve?

This time, for me, is the end of my productive day (hey, I started at 5am!) and where I record what I want to accomplish. Perhaps it is a concrete goal like finishing a project or a more abstract priority like getting to 4pm without yelling at the kids. Whatever it is, write it down. 

4-5pm: reflection. What has stirred/is stirring?

4pm is my hard stop. A coffee break that morphs into cocktail hour that leads to dinner and resolves into family time. Well, at least that is my story. I like to think of this as my quiet time, a new morning—a time for me to consider the day and prepare for the next then step away in preparation for the evening.

5-8pm: permission. What is out of my control that I can delegate to the universe?

This time is intentionally left blank. But, obviously, it is not empty. This is probably the fullest part of the day so it is the time in which I make no specific plans. Dinner is here most of the time. And sometimes work. Lessons, homework, errands, parties. I give this time of day flexibility to be what it needs to be. 

8pm-5am: illumination. What good have I done today? What did I learn? What can I do better tomorrow?

This is the light (in the darkness). And, fortunately, it is the biggest chunk of the day. During this time and in this section of my planner, I reflect on my day and illuminate what I got from it. Lessons, gratitude, reminders. And somewhere in there, I sleep and dream (which is a kind of plan).

A few hours ago, I wrote, in the 5-8am section of my planner, that my routines “free time and ease conflict.” A few minutes ago I wrote that time intentioning is a solid, protective umbrella and a porous and freeing net for my day. Both—perhaps all four—are true. The reality of time is that it isn’t real except for that it is. But we cannot protect ourselves from it nor can we capture it. We are in constant motion around the sun, the moon is in constant motion around us, and we, like Adam to the animals, name time in an attempt to control it. But that’s just silly.

Time intentioning is a poem of time. It takes an abstraction and gives it weight, place, and image. Not so that we can picture time, but so that we can recognize and give language to our deliberate experience of it. In this new dark moon as we begin this new (light?) year, let’s not try to control time, to manage, save, borrow, make, or find time, but to intend it for what it is—a frame on which to construct our life’s narrative.