Aldric's Daily Schedule, And Mine

I've been working on trying to spend my time more wisely, if you recall Experiment Six-to-Six. Last night, I read an article on a Disney blog about a typical Disney prince's daily schedule, which gave me a few ideas of what a paladin's daily schedule might include, which gave me a few ideas of what mine should. This idea isn't new. In fact, a few years ago, I kept to a strict daily schedule as a missionary. I'll use that schedule for ideas, too.

I want to start this off by writing up Aldric's daily schedule. Aldric is my Paladin character in D&D. I figure that I could make a schedule for him using a combination of the Disney prince schedule and the missionary schedule, and then I could make a schedule for myself using the missionary daily schedule and Aldric's schedule. Let's see how this goes.

The missionary daily schedule starts at 6:30, and Aldric's day will probably start pretty early, too. Perhaps at sunrise, or just before. Sunrise is when he prays to his deity for access to his daily portion of divine magic, so he'd have to be up at least that early, and it'd help if he's not still half-asleep at that time. This works out for the missionary daily schedule, since missionaries always start their day with prayer. Also pretty early in a missionary's morning is personal scripture study. I'll combine those two things for Aldric and together they'll make up the first hour of his day.

The first item on the Disney prince's daily list is breakfast, followed by training. This works perfectly with the missionary daily schedule, since they have breakfast and do 30 minutes of exercise right after their morning prayers, so Aldric will follow that same pattern. After breakfast, he'll do sword drills and train with his horse, and basically keep himself in good enough shape that he'll be ready for his next adventure. This only takes 30 minutes for missionaries, but I plan on it taking up most of Aldric's morning.

After training, Aldric bathes, has lunch, and goes out into town. This sort of matches the missionary schedule, except that they go out just before lunch (and after lunch, and again right after dinner), and they preach the gospel to everyone they see. Aldric probably won't do that, but he'll definitely be as Christian as possible, probably sharing some encouraging or at times admonishing words from out of his religious texts (all of the religions in D&D are different from real-world religions, but the one Aldric belongs to is close enough to generic Christianity that I can pretend that he worships the Christian God, using a Christian Bible. Speaking of which, I forgot to list that among his personal affects on his character sheet. I should probably do that sometime because I bet the book weighs at least one pound).

The Disney prince schedule encourages social interaction as well, but for different reasons. Not being affiliated with any religion (and often going out of their way to avoid the subject), Disney has their princes hit the town purely for social and slightly political reasons. "A prince’s subjects need to trust him, and believe that he’s the right man for the throne. Mingling with the locals, and putting on some of that patented princely charm, is part of the job." Aldric has similar shoes to fill. While he's not in line for any throne, he is the new guy in town, and he wants to gain a solid reputation as a good guy in the eyes of the community. That includes mingling with the townspeople and being friendly.

Aldric's town-wandering always leads him to the local church, where he volunteers what little healing magic he has to aiding the sick and afflicted. (Actually, his healing magic won't extend to illnesses until he reaches 6th level. In the meantime, he uses his magic to heal physical injuries.) This, naturally, isn't on either the missionary's or the Disney prince's schedules, but missionaries do make time for service every week, though not usually every day.

At this point, the schedules fail me. The missionary daily schedule really only covers the morning routine since missionaries spend all of the rest of their time doing missionary work. And the Disney prince's schedule isn't a whole lot better because it staggers through episodes of falling in love alternating with doing other things. At about mid-afternoon, he meets a fair maiden, which is only natural. If an attractive young guy spends any amount of time mingling with others, he's bound to bump into a young woman who's attracted to him. But then the Disney schedule has him perform "a daring feat of bravery," which is entirely unnecessary, unless there's some kind of emergency, and emergencies don't typically follow daily schedules. Yes, if something bad happens, you drop everything and be a hero, but it's not something you actually plan on, unless you somehow orchestrated the "emergency," which is decidedly anti-heroic.

Anyhow, once the regularly scheduled emergency has been dealt with by our heroic prince, he goes back to falling in love, followed by some "me time," followed by more falling in love. Fortunately for me, I already had my own idea for how Aldric spends his evenings. Once most, if not all, of his healing magic is spent, he goes back to the tavern where many people socialize and enjoy their meals over a glass of wine or mug of ale. At this time, he mostly stays quiet and does some people-watching, keeping a lookout for anyone who might be inclined to start a argument or brawl. If things start to get heated, he encourages everyone to settle down. Once the tavern is quiet enough to no longer need a vigilant peacekeeper, Aldric retires to his bedroom, where he does some letter and journal writing before going to bed. Actually, a better time for letter-writing would be in the morning before breakfast, so he could hand the letters off to the messengers that day. I'll throw that in right after his personal study. He still journals at night, as do I.

To recap:
Dawn - Wake up, Prayers/Study
Early Morning - Letter Writing, Breakfast
Late Morning - Training
Mid-Day - Bathe, Lunch, Mingle
Afternoon - Service
Late Afternoon - More mingling before dinner, if time permits.
Evening - Dinner, People-Watching/Peace-Keeping
Late Evening - Journal Writing, Evening Prayer, Bed.

I'm getting tired just reading all of that. Adapting it to me:

6:00 - Wake up, Morning prayer
Early Morning - Breakfast, Blogging (I guess that sort of counts as some kind of personal study.)
Late Morning - ...It depends.

Right now, if I have time in the morning after blogging, I go to the Bishop's Storehouse, which could count as service and light exercise put together. But school will be starting up soon, and then I'll be spending my mornings there. After that, who knows? There will be some social interaction, I'm sure, but how much? Preferably not too much. I need to schedule specific times for writing and job-hunting. The trouble is that my afternoons are so free that I'm not sure which thing to do first or how much time to give each of them. Also, I should set aside some time for chores and playing piano (I'll put that down as "me time"), but the order in which to do those things eludes me.

Okay, think. I just got home from school, and I'm feeling pretty happy and a little tired from biking. What do I do next? Writing. Okay. After that? Chores (physically active, but mentally restful). Then job-hunting. Then Piano. That way, Mom will come home to find me in a good mood, playing hymns or other nice music. I like the sound of that. My evenings will involve more social interaction with family (unless I have a meeting or something), followed by an hour or so of TV (still with family), then family prayer and scriptures. After that, I'll brush my teeth, write in my journal, and do some personal scripture study before bed, just as I do now (though preferably with less computer-usage between family prayer and actually going to bed).

So, Late Morning - Storehouse or School
Afternoon - Writing, Chores, Job-Hunting, Piano (Still have to work out exact times for those.)
Evening - Dinner, Family Time or Meetings
Late Evening - Family Prayer, Scriptures, Journal Writing, Bed.

Sounds like a full day. Sounds like a good day. I'm glad I finally did this.