Projects and Tasks

Monday's always bring me back to reality with tasks piled up from the previous week and projects on the go. One of the challenges of "Getting Things Done" (a great book by the way!) is that the urgent often overtakes the important. This causes us to get done many things that are not important and neglect things that are extremely important. There are four quadrants for time.
1. Urgent but not important. (This is the most wasteful and painful area)
2. Important but not urgent. (This area gets neglected the most and needs the most intentional effort)
3. Urgent and important. (This area is not much of a problem for most people)
4. Not urgent and not important. (As strange as if seems, this area can take over a person's life. We long for stressless situations and sometimes we can default to these things if we are overly stressed or anxious. Watching TV by yourself, or surfing the Internet falls in this category.)

Here is the 'big aha' for me lately. Projects tend to bear more long term results than tasks do. I need to stay focused on projects. But projects often lack clarity. Actually projects need to be broken down into small tasks. When we have something that needs to be done but we have not named the next action (task) we tend to be frozen (paralyzed) and unable to do anything except feel the weight of the project. Taking the time to look at a project and NAME the next action (task) is one of the most important things I do in order to stay in the zone of effectiveness.

What REALLY Matters?

The night of April 14, 1992, the ocean liner Titanic crashed into an iceberg in the Atlantic and sank. One of the most fascinating stories was from a woman who was boarding a lifeboat as the Titanic was sinking. She asked if she could return to her stateroom for something and was given just three minutes. In her stateroom she ignored her own jewellery, and instead grabbed 3 oranges. Then she quickly returned to her place in the boat.   Just hours earlier it would have been ludicrous to think she would have accepted a crate of oranges for even one small diamond. But, circumstances had suddenly transformed all the values aboard the ship. The emergency had clarified her priorities! Too often we wait too long to learn what is really important.

Too easily and too frequently we get sidetracked and distracted from the truly important things in life. The comforts of this world and the busyness of life deceive us into counting frivolous things as important and vitally important things as insignificant.

What do you need to raise higher when it comes to your life's priorities?

What do you need to lower?

I know for me this year, I am determined to view my time in God's Word as far more important than the vast majority of the rest of my life.

Still Had Time to Hold Children On His Lap

“No one in history accomplished more, yet He did so without aquiring an ulcer. And several times the Bible tells us He took a break. He carried the weight of the world on His shoulders, but slept soundly in the bottom of a storm-tossed boat. After all, He changed the course of history and still had time to hold children on His lap.”