More Than a Schedule

Your schedule is less about what you are doing and more about who you are becoming. 

-Bill Hybels

We all have schedules to maintain and tasks that move us through each week. There are dozens of important items and appointments and it doesn't take long before we have completely filled up our days.

Being busy isn't necessarily a bad thing (at least not all the time), but we do need to keep the right perspective on it. Are we aligning our tasks and calendars just to get things done or do we intentionally structure our agenda to build towards a better future? This isn't always an easy balance to maintain, but we feel less frustrated by our days when we see how it helps us grow into something more.

Fill It Up!

Before I changed my eating habits close to a year and a half ago, I used to say my favorite restaurant was a free buffet. I took great pleasure in putting away a ton of food and was comfortable whether it was a salad bar, pizza buffet, Chinese restaurant, or country cooking. Fortunately, I had friends who shared a love for the bottomless food pit and worked with teenagers who would relish the challenge of "all-you-can-eat." We were known for looking for a buffet when it came time to eat and would share tales of the amount of food we had eaten in different places. We even planned out the location of our favorite buffet restaurants for our road trips.

At these gluttony palaces I would pile the food on my plate even though it wasn't necessary-after all, I could go back as many times as I wanted. In fact, sometimes the food would fill my plate to the point of overflowing. In my efforts to get as much as possible on one plate I would inevitably end up losing some food item off the side when something else was added. No matter how much I wanted to put on my plate, there was a limit and something would be lost if I persisted.

While I may not frequent those eating establishments anymore, I am still guilty of trying to crowd too many things onto one plate. In my desire to not miss out on anything and to be part of big, positive projects I end up squeezing out things that are important. This doesn't diminish my desire to achieve more, but it leaves me feeling frustrated when I can't keep the things that really matter in front of me. With too many items on one day's agenda there is a guarantee that something will be pushed off due to a lack of time and energy.

I've either got to limit the number of tasks I take on or resign myself to losing something when it falls off the edge.

Necessary & Fulfilling

There are things that we do purely out of obligation and duty. There are other tasks that we complete because they bring us joy and fulfillment. This doesn't mean that our obligations can't bring often bring us satisfaction or that things that we find fulfilling are not also a duty. It does mean that we need to find the balance between the two or we will either avoid the mundane, but essential tasks or only fill our day with what we consider to be a joy. There is great maturity in balancing necessary discipline and enjoyment that may even lead us to find that they intermingle more than we think.

Day by Day

I am a goal-setter and vision caster (although not as much as I would like to be.) I write every day in my Franklin Planner, keep task lists in my phone, and keep running lists of projects that I look over continually for thought & plans of attack. 

My wife & I just had a conversation about my day at work and I commented that I got some things done, but I wasn't satisfied with what I achieved because there is still so much to do. She replied that she always expected that answer and never anticipated hearing me say that I had finished everything on my list. 

That was not the style of life in Arizona on our mission trip last week however. I got up each morning with the first objectives of drinking as much coffee as possible, praying, and immersing myself in the Word. The rest of the day was determined by the work projects from AICM staff and hitting the rez on the blue bus. I didn't find myself constantly checking a task list or wondering how to spin things into greater productivity. I simply worked with our team to get that immediate job done and move on to the next one.

I don't want to lose my future focus in what I am doing now, but there was a simple satisfaction in striving to complete that day's task and nothing more. It is a balance I need to continue to learn to manage. By nature of my calling I must seek the future, yet I should also find satisfaction in completing what today holds and enjoy the journey while it lasts.