It’s not unusual for polyamorous people to start pondering about scheduling.
It’s a valid concern, as if you’re poly, you might very well have a lot of people in your life who are important to you and that you want to hang out with.
If you’re lucky, you’ll find that many of your loves like to hang out together in groups. This cuts down on the scheduling issues, but let’s face it, plenty of people do enjoy more one-on-one time with loves. (Not only sex, mind. Oh, that too, but not only sex!)
What do you do?
The first thing that’s useful is to be realistic about how much time you actually have. Everyone in the world gets 168 hours in the week. You’re going to use some of that for sleeping. Chances are good you have a job. Some people spend some of that time working out. You probably have families and other relationships. You might have school, or charity work you do. This is all important, too. If you’re taking that time to hang out with loves, it’s got to come from somewhere and you certainly don’t want to slack on your other commitments.
As unromantic as it seems, it might be helpful to print out a time management chart1 and fill in what your real schedule looks like. Be honest How much are you really sleeping? WoW? Fill in the real time you’re spendin’ on that, cupcake, and stop looking at me like that! Fill in commuting time, fill in meal times. Fill in the time you’re spending reading to your kids, working on projects… Don’t neglect any of it!
Then, you can encourage your loves to do this, too. After you’ve got it down realistically, you’ll be able to decide between yourselves how much time you really do have for loves. This only works if you’ve done your best to be honest and accurate when you fill out the time management chart, by the way. If it’s really only a couple of hours a month that you really have, don’t try to pretend it’s otherwise. You’ll find fudging expectations and juggling commitments is only going to cause problems. Be up front. Be strict with yourself about the new and shiny, too!
For you geeks, there’s plenty of group calendaring software/websites out there. Start using them. Yahoo and Google both have options to share their calendars with people and those calendars can sync with many software packages on the market so that you’re all good with your desktop. PDAs and smartphones are becoming cheaper and you can easily transfer calendaring info from one to the other.
But even if you’re not a geek, come on, you can get a big, cheap paper calendar or whiteboard!2
I know this sounds unromantic and against the whole “go with the flow” preference many have. However, if you want to be loving, a great way to do it is to be up front about what kind of time commitment you can make to a relationship. The only way to do that is to know for yourself what kind of time you have to give.
Then you can give without worrying, ’cause you know it’s there and available. And that makes love more fun.
1 This is just a 24 hour, seven day chart where you can fill in what you’re really doing and when to get an idea of how you’re using your time.
2I got in the habit of using one back when OLQ was still together and it’s a boon to my busy and ever changing household!
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