No "To Do" list and what I am learning

Easter is over and I am going to break my fast. I am going to start listing again – but quite differently than before.

I want to stop though, and write down some of what I have been learning through this odd exercise:

1. As Colleen predicted in her comments, the important and necessary things are getting done, usually when they need to, sometimes even earlier.

2. Because I can't write a thing down when I think of it, I often do something quite radical - I actually start it. This has resulted in less procrastination.

3. I find myself consulting with God more often, and He is a far gentler and more winsome task-master than I am.

4. So far I am finding that my energy levels more closely match the required volume of work at any given time.

5. I am learning to think through a day more carefully, and as Stephen Covey so famously says, "begin with the end in mind." This means things like getting started on dinner around lunchtime, and just generally doing the important stuff first. I am learning to allow the little stuff to be little stuff, and let it fall in wherever it most naturally fits.

And here is the very best one:

6. I am beginning to believe (or maybe beginning to begin to believe) that what needs to happen will, really and truly, happen: when it needs to.

What that is doing in me is very nice. I am feeling less driven, more peaceful.

I had no idea, when I started this, that it would so directly affect that root of drivenness in me. For years I have had a disquieting sense about the way I live my life: that I am missing something, getting it all wrong somehow.

I was a disorganized, scattered person growing up. Desiring to 'get my act together', I read many books about time management, discipline, and so on. I learned such useful tricks as: if it really needs to get done, put it last on your list, that way you know you have to keep moving through all the other items.

I learned how to ratchet up the pressure. Yes, those systems work, that is to say, they kept me running. And that is how I truly felt, like I was running from the start of the day to the glorious moment when I dropped, exhausted, into bed.

I'm not feeling that way lately. Yet, I am hardly less productive.

And I am happier.

Now I just need to keep on. There are voices on the edge of my mind warning me that this is a bubble that will soon burst. They mutter that this will only work for a short season, while I don't have too much going on. When life gets busier, and it will, I will have to return to the high pressured pace.

But that is dead wrong, because the thing about living high-pressure is that I start to choreograph my time without reference to God. It matters more that I accomplish certain things, than that I listen for Him. What I am trying to learn now, instead, is to cultivate peace, based on the truth that God cares more about my activity than I do, and all my goals are safe with Him. Yes, there may be times I will have to move quickly, there will be times when much needs doing in a short time, but it doesn't have to be without God.

That's the big deal. It doesn't have to be without God. I am not alone in this. I am not even in charge of it.

I am tempted to write: “He leads this dance.”

But I won’t. (Well I did, but only to say why I won’t. That doesn’t count does it?) Because honestly, it still doesn’t feel much like dancing. It feels better, but not that good yet.

I think, though, that I might be in the dance studio.