Week 15 Questions and Answers
There are not a lot of scripture behind my answers this week. That bothers me a little but it doesn’t change the answers at all. I like having scripture for the basis of doing things. I’ll have to think on that between now and Sunday to see if anything changes or my opinions change any.
"Bright Ideas - Day 263 of Project 365" by purplemattfish is marked with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Question 1: Why do you (I) do things?
Money, I enjoy them, someone expects me to do them, or someone depends on me to do something. Often times God falls into that “someone expects me to do them” category. It should be in the “I enjoy them” category. Perhaps there’s a category I didn’t mention that is more toward joy and less toward obligation. I don’t know what to call it but perhaps it is simply called Love. That doesn’t mean what some would like to impute to the word. Love is not an excuse to ignore difficult scripture, overlook wrongdoing, or dismiss improper behavior. Love sometimes means making tough decisions, hard calls, and say things that might sound hurtful in the short term. But Christians aren’t in this for the short term. We’re in this for eternity.
Question 2: Why do you get up in the morning?
Because my alarm clock goes off. Because there are things in my life that won’t get done unless I do them. Some of those things are for me. Some of those things are for my family, some of those things are for others, and some of those things are for God. Three out of the four I don’t control, and they take most of my time. The other one I do control and it gets far less of my time than I would like. I wonder if there should be a second one in the “I do control” list and would I enjoy it more if it were?
Question 3: Why do you order your day the way you do?
I order my day the way I do to avoid letting other people down. Project management and the Marine Corps have been a great influence on my life to help me order things to be done. Duty, honor, responsibility, and knowing who the stakeholders are in each task help me figure out and make decisions about ordering my day.
Question 4: How do you order your day?
My desk tends to get messy. That’s a bit by design. Things I see on a regular basis keep open tasks in mind so they get worked on. If I don’t see it, I forget about it.
Sticky notes are fantastic tools for keeping things in view that are too big to fit on the desk, but they have a drawback. If I'm not diligent at working my tasks all the sticky notes with scribbles on them begin to blend together. Adding something I’m supposed to remember via a sticky note to the pattern just makes it a Mosaic of the Forgotten rather than a memory tool.
I make lists, prioritize those lists, reorder the tasks in priority order, then work them according to that structure. Each category gets a priority and as multiple lists in a category are made; they are ordered by priority as well. This cascade of priorities becomes a readily followable method to work on what I have decided is the most important.
Due dates for someone else are top priorities as they get closer. Things not for someone else fall through the cracks as I decide to ignore my self-imposed due dates. Sometimes, when my self-imposed due date tasks fall through the cracks, they take someone else’s task with them. My desire to not do difficult tasks until the very last-minute bites me in not getting my things done. The odd thing is, especially with my writing, while I’m doing something required because time has run out on the due date, I am wishing I could be doing The Other Thing. But, when I’ve completed The Required Thing, I choose to do something other than The Other Thing I distracted myself with prior. You would think I would do what I was daydreaming about doing but that isn’t how it works out and I have no idea why.