Just how much stuff do we need? I keep getting taught over and over that we don’t need much. I am not sure though that I am listening to the lesson. When I packed to go to the beach a little over a week ago, I thought I was being consevative. I pack all four of us plus a cooler and some fun gear into the trunk of our Toyota Corolla. I thought I was doing well. Nevertheless, at the end of the week some of the ‘fun gear’ never left the trunk and about one-third of my clothes never got touched! I was reminded of how little I need and how much I tend to over compensate.
The lesson came home to me again this morning as I transitioned back to work. I wrote a ‘to do’ list of epic proportions and crammed a tote bag full as I headed off to the office. Something nagged at me about both. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do the things on my list. I think my discomfort was more how self-deluded the whole process seemed. Who am I kidding with my massive to-do list other than myself? And what purpose does it really hold?
God-incidentally, as I was driving to work thinking about writing a post on this phenomenon, my seat belt alarm spontaneously went off. The random alarm confused me at first and then I realized that my tote bag was so heavy that the passenger seat thought someone was sitting there. Good grief! Am I really carrying so much stuff it can be confused for another person? The sad answer is ‘yes.’
So what to do? First, I am going to toss my to-do list as I currently have it. I am writing down five things that I know require my attention. When I am done with those I will renegotiate a list of three to five new things. I am going to see how that goes. I am thinking it will be very freeing in many ways.
The idea came to me from a new game I learned this past week called bananagrams. It’s a game somewhat reminscent of Scrabble in which you race against other people creating crossword puzzles from lettered tiles. One afternoon I decided to make a massive crossword puzzle from all of the tiles. I would have been overwhelmed if I had flipped all of the tiles at once and tried to create the puzzle. Instead I started with a twenty one tiles and once every tile was used, I would draw seven more. If I couldn’t figure out how to use a letter I would dump it, but had to draw three in its place. That gives you a high incentive not to dump. This is going to be my new to-do strategy. I will be doing five from my epic list and nothing gets considered until those five are done and then I will draw a new set. My traditional bottomless list that keeps getting re-configure is out of the picture for at least this week.
To me all of this boils down to–How do we practically live out Jesus instruction, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” In a way my truncated list is a one day at a time approach. I am letting go of imposing unrealistic if not impossible expectations.
I would love to hear from any of you who have tamed the to-do list beast. I will report soon on my progress. Until then, I just finished one thing on my list and am moving on to the next. Blessings from The Practical Disciple.