Vision Navigator

[Note: I've been on a self-imposed blog hiatus for the past few weeks, but wanted to check in to offer a brief word of explanation, and let my faithful readers (that's you!) know that I'm still alive and well].

When I was a kid, I remember either my older brother or sister having a very “hip” to do list (it was the 70s, when hip was really cool). It had a glossy plastic orange cover with lowercase white lettering that read “Dumb Things I Gotta Do.” This list hung around our house for a number of years, and to my knowledge nothing was ever written in it. This isn’t surprising really, because who wants to be reminded of pointless tasks you’re forced to do against your will?

This list came to mind recently, because I realized some of my own to do lists have started to feel like that for me. Chores. Sources of stress. Burdens. Fun-suckers. Energy drains. Dumb things I gotta do.

So what’s a person to do? Add another “to do.” Namely, write a blog post about it

Seriously, I’ve come to realize such feelings are an indicator that there is a disconnect in certain areas of my life between vision and reality. That I’ve over-committed, and undervalued the limited amount of time and energy I really have to spend. That I’ve allowed complexity to set in, at the expense of simplicity and clarity.

So for the past couple of weeks I’ve been doing what I counsel my clients to do. Hop off the treadmill for a bit to evaluate why I was on it in the first place. Employ the aid of a strategic outsider to help me gain some perspective and ongoing vision clarity (because, as a friend of mine so aptly puts it, “You can’t see the back of your own head”). Take some time to evaluate all the task oriented clutter that I’ve accumulated, to see where it fits (or doesn’t fit) within the broader missional framework for my life.

Thus, the blog hiatus. So now you know.

Does your life feel clear or cluttered? How do you manage your to do list(s)? When you look at the tasks on them, do you feel drained or energized?