Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Seven Habits of Something Something

The Sunday before last we had a lesson in Church based entirely on a book by Steven Covey called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People or something like that. The message was about how we should prioritize correctly. The teacher did a good job.

That's the extent of my praise.

You know how some people like to take on lots of responsibility and have a full schedule all the time? I am the opposite of those people. Those people are the types that will become rich and "successful" (my apologies to Brooke that I am the opposite of them). Anyway, we were all challenged to plan out our entire week. First we were supposed to write five things from several categories that we wanted to accomplish that week. The categories were things like urgent important, not urgent important, urgent not important, etc. You can read the book to understand it better if you want because I won't go into it. So we were supposed to pen (not pencil) in those items and then work everything else around them. It was a great idea for all the junior Steven Coveys in class, but not for me. I didn't accept the challenge.

Something about me: I love having nothing to do. It has become a badge of honor in our society to be productive, constantly accomplishing stuff, and a highly effective people. When people with busy schedules are talking to you about it, they put on airs of exasperation (sp? even a word?) and talk about how they'd love more free time, but they can't hide their pride in how busy they are. People love feeling useful I guess. I, however, do not feel any pride by packing my schedule. I could care less about being productive. Part of me gets the sense that this is a bad trait. I could, and should, do a lot more than I do but frankly I don't want to.

In short, I'm lazy.

I guess the impression I got was that we all should aspire to be one of Covey's highly effective people (and I concede that maybe we should!). I just realized that people like that often think that everyone would like to be that way. I, however, love not planning out my week and I love not being busy.

This is only 1/10,000th of what has been spinning in my head on the matter. And that, my friends, is what I do with all my free time I've been referring to...I think too much about random stuff.

There's a blog, so now Brooke has to remove the photos of me in the previous post.

5 comments:

christy said...

i agree. i get way stressed if my calendar is too full. i need to be able to just chill and waste time like i am right now on the internet. i do like to get some things done but i make a list and just check it off when it gets done. there are no deadlines.

Mrs. Mike said...

We must be related. I've always planned free time into my schedule. And, I'm sorry, but I think it is very lame that you had a lesson in church based on Steven Covey's book. He is not a prophet and his books are not scripture! Come on, people!

I probably have a lot more to say about this too. But I'll just say this: You are not lazy. You are just not full of yourself and don't feel the need to convince the rest of the world that your life is worthwhile by filling it with a lot of stuff. That's a good trait - don't change it.

Samantha said...

I think you must be related to William too...or did William write this? Sounds like it. He would have put in some more hard-to-understand phrases though. Ha! Love you William! Seriously though he's in the same boat as you. I could do better about that, but I do like to have my down time.

And what kind of church lesson is that? I would have been way mad if they did a lesson in CHURCH based on that, that doesn't seem appropriate, is he a prophet or something?

I get really bugged by people like that- I know tons of them- take on waaaay too much and then make sure that you know how much they took on and how stressed they are.

I never got to see the pictures!

I'm sorry about that gross bug! Centipedes are the worst. Was it in the bathroom? We used to get them in my parents' bathroom a lot.

William said...

You have two options in such a church situation. 1) Reference Matthew 6:28 "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin". 2) Simply say "Martha, Martha, thou are careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her."

Caitlyn said...

Yeah... I like to not do things too. And Will. We're a perfect couple when it comes to not doing things.