Don’t Be Listless

I built models as a kid. My favorite was the B-29. But before it came along was the Model 299 Flying Fortress. This plane was so complex, its first flight failed due to someone missing one step preparing for flight. The pilot checklist was developed, and aviation became what it is today.

The author used this story to introduce the concept that we cannot remember everything we need to do. We cannot intuitively get them in sequence or priority. We have obligations, thoughts, ideas, tasks, and tons of other things on our minds. He says we need a list. I know some people do not and they are most likely very successful, but I need lists.

He references lists in the Bible. The Ten commandments, the nine Beatitudes (I did not know there were nine), the nine fruits of the Spirit, the seven deadly sins, and although not actually in the Bible, Luther’s 95 Theses. This week I implemented my new 13-point checklist before I leave the house. I am going to have to write it down to keep up with it. 10 was hard enough, but now I have to have a mask, eye drops, and a card to work at my new client’s office. Ugh.

We need a way to process:

• now, later, someday
• big, little, in between
• logical, trusted, outside your head, off your mind

I remember Steven Covey had the urgent and important matrix for prioritization, but I can definitely see having a “big” for those “big, someday” tasks that I never want to think about ever again.

If we remember the first pattern/chapter, our goal is to be effective going about our Father’s business. On of the best examples of leadership in literature is that covering Nehemiah driving the rebuilding of Jerusalem. It includes all the aspects of lists the author wants us to utilize.

One of my favorite authors was Tom Clancy. His books were thick and took some time to get through. The author of this book Mastering Life actually references the habits of a character in a Tom Clancy story about writing an idea down immediately, because if it is not written down, it did not happen. I know I forget ideas all the time, but I never recognized the part in that book as something to apply to my life. I have tried to carry paper with me before to apply this, but paper is tough to keep up with. I know I need to learn to use my phone, but I am not there yet.

The author ends with a new to me phrase of Comprehensive Personal Agenda. Big words that he uses CPA for. I think CPA is taken, but I like the idea. I have a notebook with thousands of things written in it (or so it seems), but I never seem to go back and use all that for anything. I always thought the act of writing was to get it into memory a third way.

I have no recollection of how long ago I read this book now, but I was ready to implement its ideas and I have done fairly well about having multiple lists and picking my daily activities from them. Things still fall by the wayside as the day happens (and it still tends to be exercise that falls first), but I definitely feel that I am spending more time on the important things and less time on the trivial. I know that I will have to learn to block out rest as when I get busy working, I tend to keep at it.

As we wrap up the third pattern from the book, I wanted to review. Be about the work God has placed you here for, do not waste time as it is a finite, irreplaceable commodity, and get organized. If my memory works, I mentioned once that I read a piece about taking time to write down an eulogy for yourself to give you proper perspective on your life.

I pause here for recoil. I wrote the last sentence (below) and it was like getting hit over the head with a hammer, so I decide to make it last and lead into it. The world around us kinda seems like the phrase “trying to impress people you do not even like”. I do not want people to “like” me because of my house or my car or my clothes or whatever. I want to have happiness from my house, my car, my clothes or whatever, but I want joy from my relationships. One of my traits is to please people. Its not super overwhelming, but a couple once asked if they should refinance their house. Rather than say yes or no, I told them the steps in the process that create the opportunity for the decision to be a wise one. I was not trying to please them; I was trying to help them. So when you read the next sentence, know I am trying to help, but even writing it, it felt pretty stern. So it must be right, right?

Applying that now, if it does not glorify God, if those in your life will not care about it when you die, then cut it out of your life.