#BIGRead14

(Yes)today’s post was on to-do lists, and I enjoyed reading everyone’s responses. We seem to live in a world of to-do lists, and I was told earlier this week that in my efforts to keep on top of my to-do list, I mostly end up with a dented to-do list and a dented Bex. Love this response to the poem:

Each item on my potential list
Swirls round my brain like a marauding shark,
The anxiety building like a threatening storm.
If I don’t catch each thought, write it down,
The wave will capsize me and I will be devoured, painfully.
My list is my harpoon
That nails each task to paper,

I do find the todoist app incredibly helpful, out of the various ways that I’ve tried. A few years ago I read Mark Forster ‘Do it tomorrow and other secrets of time management’, which worked for me. Lots of conventional time management says put things into a calendar and stick rigidly to it – whereas he says, make a list of what you have to do – you have to do all of it – so it doesn’t matter where you start!

Quite liked this piece on Patheos – God’s Bucket List (not quite the same, but the to-do list of a lifetime I guess).

#Do1NiceThing: Be a nice driver – spread road-calm! and we were only discussing in the pub last night the different driving styles in different countries. I only went out briefly yesterday, but I think I’m a nice driver most of the time .. and Richard Coles posted:

Oh joy of joys. A nincompoop in a Porsche Cayenne came up way too fast and too close behind me just now on the A14, narrow-laned for road works, flashing and sounding the horn. I let it pass, but caught up with it a minute later, as it turned in to the Crematorium in time for the funeral I am about to take and at which I may adapt my homily to make the most of this opportunity.

Maggi Dawn

Maggi (in Giving it Up) draws on Matthew 4:8-11, with regards to the desire for power and control. There’s an interesting note that we want to control our own little world – which makes me wonder if that’s what we are doing with the to-do list (although I’m a big believer in finding the right tools, but making them work for us, rather than being a slave to them).

There’s a strong call to use any power that we may have, not to control, to bully (however benignly), but to use it in a transparent way for the benefit of others. Pace ourselves, and keep a clear view of what we are here for in the long run!