Why Taking Care of Your Body Belongs on Your Calendar Too

You schedule everyone else's appointments. Yours deserve the same treatment.

Open your calendar. The orthodontist is in there. So are the parent-teacher conference, your mother's cardiology follow-up, the dog's vaccines, and a recurring meeting you could not explain the purpose of if asked.

Now look for yourself. Your own checkup. The walk you keep meaning to take. Lunch.

For a lot of women, care for their own body lives in a different system entirely, the one called "when things calm down." Things do not calm down. Which is why the calendar, dull as it is, may be the most practical health tool you own.

What is not scheduled loses

This is not a character flaw. It is how time works when you are responsible for other people.

In a KFF survey of more than 2,700 US women ages 18 to 64, about one in four said they had gone without or delayed health care because they could not find the time. Nearly as many, 23 percent, said they could not take time off work, and 14 percent cited childcare problems.

Caregivers show the same pattern. The Family Caregiver Alliance reports that family caregivers of any age are less likely than non-caregivers to practice preventive health care, and that many postpone their own medical appointments. The CDC puts the principle in a few words on its caregiving pages: self-care isn't selfish.

The common thread is that your needs are flexible and everyone else's are fixed. Fixed things win. A calendar entry is how you make something fixed.

The evidence for writing down a date and time

Researchers have tested this directly. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2011, more than 3,200 employees at a large company received a mailing about free on-site flu shot clinics.

Some got the standard reminder. Others were also prompted to write down the date and time they planned to go. That tiny addition raised vaccination rates by about four percentage points over the reminder alone. A prompt to write down only the date did not make a statistically significant difference.

Nobody was persuaded of anything new. They already meant to go. The specific plan is what turned the intention into an appointment.

"I should get more exercise" is an intention. "Tuesday, 12:15, walk to the park and back" is a plan.

What goes on the calendar

Think in three layers. You do not need all of them at once.

Layer 1: Appointments with professionals

• An annual checkup or well-woman visit

• Dental cleanings

• An eye exam

• Whatever screenings and vaccines your doctor recommends for your age and history

• Any follow-up you were told to schedule and have not

Which screenings apply to you, and how often, is a question for your own clinician. On cost: HealthCare.gov notes that Marketplace health plans must cover a list of preventive services for women, including well-woman visits, without a copay when you use an in-network provider. Check your own plan for specifics.

Layer 2: Recurring care

• Movement you actually like, at a time you actually have

• A lunch break

• A consistent wind-down time at night

• Prescription refill reminders

Layer 3: Buffers

• Fifteen minutes between back-to-back commitments

• One unscheduled evening a week

• A recovery day after travel or a big event

Buffers are the layer people skip, and the one that keeps the other two from collapsing.

How to write an entry that survives the week

A vague block gets deleted the moment something else comes up. A good entry has four parts.

• Part: What

  • Weak version: "Exercise"

  • Strong version: "Walk the river loop"

• Part: When

  • Weak version: "Sometime Thursday"

  • Strong version: "Thursday 12:15 to 12:45"

• Part: Where

  • Weak version: (blank)

  • Strong version: "Leave from the side door"

• Part: Backup

  • Weak version: (none)

  • Strong version: "If it rains: stairs for ten minutes"

A few more things that help:

• Mark it busy. If your work calendar is shared, the block should show as unavailable. You do not need to label what it is.

• Make it recurring. One decision instead of fifty-two.

• Name it something you respect. "Appointment" works. So does your own name.

• Set two alerts. One the day before, one fifteen minutes ahead.

The if-then sentence

For care that has no natural slot, tie it to something that already happens. The formula is: "When X happens, I will do Y."

• "When I drop the kids at practice, I will walk the track until pickup."

• "When my 11:00 ends, I will eat lunch away from my desk."

• "When I book the kids' dental cleanings, I will book mine on the same call."

• "When I get the pharmacy text, I will request the refill before I put my phone down."

That last pair is worth stealing. You already have a system for everyone else's care. Add yourself to it as one more person on the list.

Protecting the block

Putting it on the calendar is step one. Keeping it there is the real work. Some lines for the usual challenges:

• Someone asks for that slot: "I have a commitment then. I can do 2:00 or tomorrow morning."

• Someone asks what the commitment is: "It's an appointment." That is a complete answer.

• Your family needs a ride at that time: "I'm not available from 5:30 to 6:15. Let's work out who else can drive."

• Your own inner voice says it can wait: "I wouldn't cancel on my daughter's doctor. I'm not canceling on mine."

Have a rule for genuine conflicts, because they will happen: move it, don't delete it. If the block has to give way, it gets a new date and time before the old one disappears. Reschedule within the same week when you can.

When you miss, because you will

Perfection is not the standard, and the research backs that up.

In a well-known University College London study led by Phillippa Lally, 96 volunteers each picked a small daily health behavior and repeated it in the same context. As summarized by the British Psychological Society, the behavior took an average of 66 days to become automatic, with a huge range from 18 days to an estimated 254. A single missed day had little effect on the process.

Two things follow. First, give a new routine a couple of months before you judge it. Second, one missed walk is one missed walk. It is not evidence that you have failed and should stop. Put the next one on the calendar and carry on.

A fifteen-minute calendar audit

Do this once, then repeat it each season.

1. Look back four weeks. Count the entries that were for your own body: appointments, movement, meals, rest. Write the number down without judgment.

2. List what is overdue. Checkup, dentist, eye exam, anything you were told to follow up on.

3. Book one. Right now, while the list is in front of you. Online scheduling exists for this exact moment.

4. Add one recurring block. Twenty to thirty minutes, once a week to start, written with all four parts.

5. Add one buffer. Fifteen minutes somewhere in your most crowded day.

If booking an appointment keeps stalling because something is worrying you, such as a symptom, a cost, or a past bad experience, say so when you call. Offices can often help with more than you expect, and a doctor would rather see you early.

Try this today

1. Book the one appointment you have postponed longest. Put it on the calendar with travel time on either side.

2. Create one recurring block for next week using the four-part format: what, when, where, backup.

3. Write one if-then sentence that adds you to a system you already run for someone else.

Your calendar is a record of what you have decided matters. You are allowed to be on it. This is your day, too.

Sources

• KFF: Overview: 2017 Kaiser Women's Health Survey

• Family Caregiver Alliance: Taking Care of YOU: Self-Care for Family Caregivers

• CDC: Caregivers of a Person with Alzheimer's Disease or a Related Dementia

• Milkman et al., "Using implementation intentions prompts to enhance influenza vaccination rates," PNAS (2011)

• HealthCare.gov: Preventive care benefits for women

• British Psychological Society Research Digest: How to form a habit