Ruth Koch once commented about time-management expert David Allen in an issue of Rev. Magazine: “Even though most folks feel over-whelmed with too much to do and too little time in which to do it, Allen argues that having an attack of the overs (overwhelmed by it all) isn't from having too much to do, but from not finishing what we start.”
Our tasks sort into three piles – finished, not finished, and probably-won’t-ever-be-finished – with the third category the largest. There are things that we routinely finish because our lives won’t work if we don’t. “But the tasks that overwhelm us are the ones that may never be finished: the broken relationship between mother and son; the tension between work and family, home and church; the priorities that keep shifting and defying tidy categories.
“Allen suggests we address those undecided, unmanaged tasks in what he calls weird time.” Weird time consists of only a few minutes, like the 15 free minutes before we have to leave home for a meeting or the 6 minutes between appoint-ments. In weird time we accept that there are tasks we may never get tidied up and finished, still we choose to do what we can. In weird time we can grab the phone and say, “I hope you are having a good day.” Or we can do something, catch up a bit, in an area of our life in which we’re always behind.
“But the most important thing you can do with your five minutes of weird time is to ask God to give you a new time table, God’s timetable.” Trust that God can do amazing things in our lives whether we finish our work, are behind in our work, or won’t ever be finished with the tasks on our To-Do List. Ours is to be faithful. - DJ
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