How I Get All I Need To Do Done And Not Drive Myself Crazy

Hello Chosen! For the past few weeks I realize that I have been feeling a bit stressed with the totality of all that goes on in my life. At present, the main themes in my life are my Christianity and church, my job, personal development activities and a few volunteer activities. Important, but not too time consuming are family based activities and social activities. Even though I haven’t listed the specific tasks, I’m not sure if that seems a lot to you or just a little, but for me it’s enough to keep me on my toes. So it does feel a bit overwhelming at times. And although I’m writing this to share with you, it’s very much for me also to air out my thoughts and remind myself of the strategy I know that works for me and perhaps can work for you too.

(Courtesy of: psychologytoday.com)

Before we get into the approach, let me just say we firstly need to know who we are and whose we are. Jesus was fully man here on earth so he went through the same things we go through, but he firmly knew who he was and we need to who we are as well. And I am a redeemed child of God.

Let’s discuss six strategic undertakings we can do to help us complete the important stuff, without compromising our health:

1.       Set a Vision and Mission for your life

We see it all the time where companies and other organizations have a vision statement and mission statement, but this isn’t limited to a big organization. We can have them for our own lives as well, and I would say we should. Not only should we have a vague idea of what it is but I suggest we write it down. This is something I’ve started but haven’t completed. And because I am telling you about it I’m now making the commitment to have it done by the end of this summer. As we grow, we are likely to change and it would be fine for us to review and update these. I’m sure everyone knows what a vision and mission statement are and you can do research if needed, but quickly; a vision statement tells who we are and where we would like to go and a mission statement describes how we are going to get there.

Read: John 8:14 http://bit.ly/John8-14

(Courtesy of: blog.42courses.com)

2.       Set Goals

Quite naturally after we understand who we are and where we are to go, goals will act as milestones for us to get to before manifesting our visions. Please consult with God as to how you should go about fulfilling your purpose. Lean not to your own understanding. Proverbs 16:9 tells us, “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.”

I have many goals and every now and again I have to review them; see what I’ve accomplished, add some more, modify and even take some off. It makes no sense if our goals don’t ultimately align with our vision, we would just end up feeling unfulfilled.

3.       Develop a Schedule and Stick to It!

This one is so important. Well, all of the actions are important, but this is where the work actually gets done. The daily tasks and actions that we do, those are what determine if we’re closer to or goals or not. It’s the little work overtime that add up rather than just one big action. Often time people talk about time management but we can’t manage time as that is outside of our control. What we can do is manage ourselves against time. Another critical aspect of this is to prioritize. We have to schedule the tasks that matter the most at the top and do them first.

Some tools I use to help keep me on track are; my Default Diary – this is a schedule of all my activities every day of the week in fifteen minute intervals, my google calendar on my PC and phone – just in case I need an extra reminder to do things, my phone assistant – most smartphones have a virtual assistant and a grid that helps me to categorize my tasks on the axes of important/unimportant and urgent/non-urgent.

Read: John 9:4 http://bit.ly/John9-4

4.       Improve Your Decision Making Skill

The way to do this is by making more decisions and making them in less time. I’m not saying we should rush through important decisions but at the same time, spending a long while to make a decision does not necessarily guarantee the best decision made. After we would have established our vision and goals, decision making should be easier, as we already know where we want to go, so the decision should be to just figure out if whatever is in question will put us closer towards our goals or further away from it. The more often we make decisions, the better we become at it. And please understand that indecision is also a decision; it will have it’s consequences. I find the grid mentioned in #3 of great help with this; I try to focus my time in the important and non-urgent quadrant.  

5.       Have Adequate Support

Friends, we need a good support system from the people around us. We should be completely dependent upon God as we cannot do anything without him, and God often uses others to provide us with the strength we need. We have so much we want to do but we cannot do them alone and we should lean on other persons as God provides. Family and/or friends may play a very integral role here. We also can’t pour from an empty cup; so as we pour into others we need to be poured into as well. I am thankful for the support system I have in my family and friends. I may not feel the support from every person all the time, which is understandable as they have their own lives but in general, it is good.

6. Rest

Lastly, and by no means least, rest! As a matter of fact, don’t wait until the end to do this. If we attempt to only rest at the end, we might not even get there. Every so often, do some wholesome activity that you consider fun. Nothing is wrong with good clean fun. I schedule time for me to have fun. And in addition to the interspersed small breaks, I am looking forward to taking a vacation soon to relax, rejuvenate and get back more focused.

Chosen, as I intend to re-implement this strategy in my life, I hope you will try it and find the value in it so it can free you to be the best you while you push towards your vision. You may reach out to me if you need any further explanation and/or you'd like me to share some of these tool templates with you.

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MeMe is a young Christian of the Pentecostal Apostolic denomination and is based in Kingston, Jamaica. Thoughts of a Chosen Generation will speak to young to middle age Christians, and aspiring Christians where they will get guidance for Christian living for the benefit of their spiritual and personal development. To learn more about Christianity, you may make contact using the below handle, leave a comment requesting that you be contacted or send a message using the contact form found under resources.                             

                                                               

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