Immediately Important

What a time this has been!! I have spent the last week in "Homeowner Chaos". Within 1 week, my dishwasher bit the dust,the framing on my couch broke, and I reached a boiling point with my washing machine- 3 trips down the stairs per loan to ensure all is detergent-free and spun well is too much! This necessitated a shopping excursion for a big-ticket item.

In the best of times, shopping for appliances can be intimidating, frustrating and is ALWAYS expensive. Combine that with the stress of an unplanned expense, and the need to get a replacement, and you have the recipe for time-consuming adventures.

I had many things planned that I needed to accomplish last week, and spending time with Appliance sales people was not on that list! There were a number of things that just COULDN'T get done. Unfortunatly that meant disappointing a friend, forgetting a few things and ultimately a busy Saturday prepping for a gathering that should have been done on Thursday.

Through it all, God is good and provided just the right people, a sense of peace, timely sales, and Home Depot open on Sunday, so I survived, but it got me thinking.

I spent all weekend chasing my tail and running from one 'fire' to another as I reacted to the things life threw at me. I remember a post I read recently (I think on Tim Sanders Blog??) about the difference between immediate and important things. So often we go from immediate need to immediate need and there doesn't seem to be time for the important things. Obviously there are moments in our lives where the immediate and the important collide but so often we get robbed.

I find that in this ADD world of 1000 messages in our faces all day that it is too easy to get pulled in so many different directions. Because we read blogs, and hang out on facebook, it can sometimes feel like we are connected to one another, and so we forget to pick up the phone for a real chat.

So today, I want keep a list of the important things I have to do this week, and when given the choice of immediate or important, I will choose important....

gotta go check my facebook :-)