protective

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Prioritize Or You Will End Up Picking Up The Pieces

We sometimes underestimate the time little tasks take and, therefore, fail to prioritize them.

prioritize or you will end up picking up the pieces

Maybe it’s just me but, when I’m not working on a significant project, I’m easily pulled away from the secondary work I have to get done. 

This week I didn’t have to write a sermon, which is normally a major weekly project. For that, I am pretty protective of my time and I manage it through the week. 

I don’t know what it is but, when I don’t have a major anchor like a sermon to structure my week around, I’m not as protective of my time. 

It’s like a high school kid on summer vacation. He wakes up every morning and his parents give him a bunch of things they want him to do before they get home from work. Any plans or ideas of what he wanted to do now come under the new assignments he’s been tasked with.

This past week’s disaster is mostly my fault; I just needed to guard my time better. 

Someone called and needed help with something. I was only working on little tasks so I left what I was working on to help them get their task done. 

That happened two or three times this week, and because I felt like I had some extra time, I also worked on a couple of other things I had not planned on. 

We’ve all seen jugglers who have about five balls in the air and then get someone to throw another ball into the air for them. Often they incorporate that extra ball into their routine seamlessly. 

But there are times when the ball that gets thrown in arrives too high or low or too hard. When that happens, the juggler doesn’t just miss or drop that extra ball. All the balls he has circling in the air also get dropped. 

The balls scatter.

That’s how I felt at the end of my week. I still had a bunch of little details and tasks to do that were all scattered around me.

When I was in high school, we liked to see how many pennies we could catch. 

… Remember those things? 5 pennies were equal to a nickel, and 100 of them made a dollar – I mean a loonie.

We would bring one arm up and rest the back of our hand on our shoulder so we could stack a pile of pennies on our forearm just before our elbow. 

Then we would snap our arm forward and catch the pile of pennies in our hand. We got up to catching 20, 30, even 40 or more pennies in as many as 4 piles on our forearm.

You had to snap your arm forward really fast to catch all those stacks of coins. But if you missed, you had pennies flying everywhere. (Don’t try this at home, kids.)

Today, I’m picking up pennies – I mean, tasks – that I just didn’t give the priority to that they required. 

Here’s the thing: When you don’t prioritize God in your life, there will be other things and other people that fill your day and keep you from having much or any time with God. When that happens, your life will tend to be a little scattered. You will lose the directional focus you need.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you failing to prioritize these days? Leave your comments and questions below.

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A Banking Mishap Has Made Me More Protective

The other day, I had a banking mishap that I’m sure many people have also had over the last couple of months: having to pay for using an ATM or an ABM (they should just stick with one acronym).

odd_cash_machine

Personally, I’m not a fan of paying for my banking. I think I’ve written about this before, but my feeling is that the banks should feel privileged to use our money to invest and make lots more for themselves.

Somehow banks have reversed that mindset, thinking their customers should feel privileged to give them our money for safekeeping.

Anyway, I was on my way to getting a haircut, which for me is a cash transaction. I didn’t have any so I first went next door to the Mac’s store to get a few shekels from the bank machine.

Up until a month ago, that machine was associated with my bank … I’ve used it many times over the past fifteen years.

But to my surprise, when I got into the store, the ATM was gone. I quickly glanced around and then spied something that looked like an automated teller machine, just in a different colour.

The markings read, “Manulife Bank”, but there was a spot for my debit card to go in, so I inserted it.

I got a message immediately informing me that the transaction I wanted to do would cost me $3. I quickly gave my head a shake because I thought I’d been transported to one of those cheque cashing places, like Cash Money, home of the $300 for $20.

I knew my bank would also charge me for using a machine that is not part of their network, so I had to think for a minute: “Do I really want to spend $5 to take my money out of my bank?”

I must have paused until the machine almost timed out, but I figured, “I need the cash right now, and I will not be doing this again”.

I’ve noticed these Manulife Bank machines are replacing my bank’s machines in a number of places. So now I have to plan a little more carefully when I want to withdraw money from my account.

I guess I could take out an account with Manulife, but frankly I’ve never seen a branch of theirs before. I looked on their website and found that they have five branches spread across Canada – the closest one to me is three hours away!

I don’t think I’ll be banking with them any time soon.

I know that many people don’t think twice about paying the fees for using convenient cash machines, but these banks already have my money for basically nothing. Why should I be gouged so that their president can take home a salary of $3 million a year plus bonuses?

No, I’d rather pick my ATM more carefully so that I’m not giving Manulife Bank executives a Starbucks coffee every time I use their machine.

Here’s the thing: There will always be something that comes along that will seek to take advantage of your money or your time. These things will be convenient and practical. You will feel pressured to part with your time or money. But you have to be your own protector of what is yours. Spiritually speaking, make sure that the things that seek to take advantage of you don’t take from your time with God or your stewardship of His resources.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What seeks to take advantage of your money or your time? Leave your comment below.