Today Thinking

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by:  Staci Stallings

So how do you stay in Today Thinking?  If power is found in today thinking, how does that look in a life?

I’ll give you an example:  Me!

I have a lot going on.  A lot of times I think of myself as lazy, but the truth is probably more that I have so much going on, I stay behind most of the time and often think, “If I could have just gotten that done last week…”

For a long time I drove myself absolutely NUTS with lists and timelines and schedules.  All that did was make me a stressed out mess.

Worse, I wasn’t any farther ahead than I ever was before.

With today/this minute thinking, God has shown me how to maximize what I’m doing and minimize my stress.

So what does this look like?

Let’s say I start my day with the following list of things that really need to be done:

Apply for Credit for husband’s company so we can buy materials for the next job
Decide who will get which articles for free day campaign (25 articles)
Write 100 tweets for free day
Write blog for Spirit Light for Monday
Get books ready for book signing
Edit next book
Finish For Real in print
Get oil in van
Daughter’s basketball game
Get son and take to gymnasics
Pay bills
(Yes, that really was my list last week)

First I would look at this and ask which is critical–must be done in 24 hours or we don’t eat or someone has to sleep at school.  Those are put at the top and when it’s time to do that, I quit whatever else I’m doing.

Next, what is most pressing in say next 72 hours?  That would be paying bills and oil in the van (so it doesn’t leave me on the side of the road and kids have to sleep at school).  Is there anything I can do while I wait for the van?  Yes. I can edit the next book if I bring my laptop.

So I go and wait and edit while I’m there.  When the van is done, editing more will have to wait because it’s not critical or most pressing.

Back home, I look through the list… most pressing pay bills.  So that’s next.

Next is Needs to be Done within 5 days.  That would be the blog and applying for credit.

Finally is needs to be done within 2-3 weeks.  I do SOME on that, whittling it down so in a week or two when it moves up to critical, I don’t have the WHOLE thing to worry about, just some.

Now, one thing that really tripped me up before was that in the middle of something, the phone would ring and it would be my mom or my best friend.  Before I would get frustrated, but now I consider these my Godly Scheduled assignments.  That means God Assignments take precedence 99% of the time.  Only if something is SUPER-CRITICAL do I ask to call them back.  Otherwise, I take the call knowing I’m on God’s time, not mine.

The beauty of this is that I don’t worry about the other ten things when I’m doing one.  I’m doing them in most critical order, so the things that HAVE to be done will be.

I’ve also added into this one other thing.  Every morning now at 10 a.m. I take a break to eat a power bar and drink some good-for-me stuff.  I go in, sit, and watch HGTV and during commercials, I clean.  I can get the living room, kids’ bath, son’s room, and dining room picked up and the kitchen dishes running.  And I don’t feel like I’m being punished with cleaning.
Now my system of today/right now thinking might not work for you, but if it sounds like it might, try it.  If it doesn’t, feel free to try something else.

The point is to learn to stay focuses on one task for a time, then another task for a time without feeling like everything has to be done now and you’re so overwhelmed you just want to quit.  Don’t quit.  Do one thing right now!

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Yesterday’s gone. Tomorrow’s not here. What can you do TODAY? http://t.co/VekZcviGm7 #motivation

— Staci Stallings (@StaciStallings) December 6, 2013