Establishing Daily Priorities

"At the begining of the week we started with the 90-day goals. I hope that you made them! It would make you life a lot simpler if you have. All you have to do is have them close by, so you can pray about them and follow through on them. Mark them off as you compleat each goal.

Now, that you have your goals set, let's talk about how to establish your daily priorities. A lot of the time we know what we want to do, but our priorities are wrong, so we do not get things done.

Let's get back to the book by Emili Barnes, chapter two...

" Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically."

Romans 12:11

" "I've got so many thing to do today that I don't know where to begin!" Is that how you feel on many days? This statement is shared by many people because they have never learned to establish daily priorities.

This chapter will give you tools fot solving the dilemma "what do I do next?" Tools needed for this exercise are:

• Sheet of paper
• 3x5 cards
• Pen or pencil

Label your sheet of paper "TO DO" amd list all the things you have been requested to do for today. When you are requested to do something, you need to ask yourself tow basic questions:

1. Do I want to take advantage of this opportunity?
2. Shall I take part in this particular activity?

After asking the two questions you may answer in one of three ways:

• Yes
• No
• Maybe

You only want to deal with the items which you have written YES next to. The NO or MAYBE items can wait for another day. Deal only with the YES items today.

Using one 3x5 card for each activity, write out the activity you will do. Such activities might include:

• Get a haircut
• Go to the bank
• Pray for ten minutes
• Spend 30 minutes cleaning the kitchen
• Write a thank-you note to Sally
• See Mary's soccer game
• Prepare dinner for tonight

After all your activities have been written on separate 3x5 cards, sort them by the order of priority(what need to be done first, second, third, etc.). Concentrate on only one acrivity at a time. After each has been completed, you can either toss out the 3x5 card or place it on the bottom of the stack of cards. When your children or mate come home and want to know what you've done all day, you can read off the various activities and they will be impressed!

Every request that comes your way doesn't have to be answered YES. It's okay to say NO. You need to control your schedule and not let others plan it for you.

One of our family mottos is to say "no" to the good things and save our "yeses" for the best."

By Emily Barnes

What I did with the 3x5 cards is saved them in a box to use the next time I needed to do the same task. 3x5 cards should become your next best friend! I can't live without them!