Schedule vs. flow

Things have not been progressing easily for us this year. With my work schedule, I've been struggling a lot to find a good rhythm for our days. This week I am working 7 days straight, Monday through Sunday, at least 8 hours each day, probably at least 60 hours this week, while next week I could take the entire week off if I choose (and if I can afford it.) This kind of random schedule makes it really hard to have a satisfying rhythm to my day, or to do anything spontaneously. Everything I do has to be laboriously planned out beforehand and too often I don't finish everything I need to do in a day, and rarely get to start on the things I want to do.

Now to be clear, I have absolutely nothing against having a schedule. We've just never really had one because we're more flow people than schedule people. My sister is very much a schedule and structure person, and we've had more than a few "discussions" over our differences. When I have structure imposed externally on me, I feel overwhelmed and out of control. By the same token, my sister feels the same way when she has no structure or schedule going on. I realized that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with any kind of structure or schedule, it's only what works for each person that really matters. And I've always functioned best with a very loose sense of flow, rather than a strict schedule.

But right now, I have no flow, and no end to this in sight. So now it's off to structure land. I just don't know where to start with this, though. I try to figure out a schedule that will work for us, but my hours, and O's well-developed sense of the spontaneous has thrown a wrench in the works every time. Maybe I should be looking more at listing the things that are really important to me and O to get done during the day, prioritize them, and work on reducing impediments to getting our stuff done.