Edit Your Schedule, Practice Self-Control
June 7, 2007 |
I had a couple of ruthless high school English teachers who routinely “bled” across my and my classmates’ papers with their red pens—fabulous teachers who taught us to write. One point they eventually got across is how much harder it is to write a short paper than a long one. This is counterintuitive but true. Today this point re-emerges when a client is relieved to learn that a permitted proposal length is only 25 pages instead of 100... And I have to explain that the short proposal will actually be a lot more work than the longer one would have been.
Why is producing a short document—a quality one, I mean—usually harder than producing a long one? Because each word in a short document must be well chosen, providing a comprehensive picture in a limited space. This takes planning, editing, and painstaking revising. And the writer can’t indulge in any luxuries a longer text affords—lengthy explanations, sidebars, a little redundancy.
Basically, you have the opportunity to be lazy in writing a longer document—blatantly or subtly. But you can’t get away with that in a short text.
It recently occurred to me that this principle isn’t just true in writing; it’s true in a lot of life. Sometimes doing more is actually lazier than doing less.
Think about a jam-packed day filled with 20 activities—errands, work tasks, social gatherings. You come home exhausted.
But while doing 20 things in a day may be tiring, it’s not really difficult. It’s like spewing hundreds of words onto a computer screen as fast as possible. Anybody can do that. The difficult thing is only doing three things in a day—three selected, planned, prayed-over things, conducted with conviction and excellence.
Most of the tasks that fill my time on 20-task days are reactive and even compulsive: living life in a knee-jerk fashion. Hurrying through, I skip reflection, prayer, and paring down my list to the truly important. These omissions are actually a form of laziness—
a reluctance or unwillingness to do necessary work; seeking the easy way out. We think of laziness as idleness and procrastination, but it can also come in the shape of frenetic activity and over-full days.
Combating laziness—whether slothfulness or frenzy—requires self-control. By harnessing self-control, the lazy person takes herself in hand and does the hard work of remedying the situation. An idle person gets off the couch and finds her car keys. An over-active person ceases bustling and does some prayerful revising of the overly long, rambling document that her life has become.
The topic of self-control gets so little press today that it almost seems a foreign concept. Even among Christians, it is a contender for the least-talked-about fruit of the spirit.
But acting without thinking—performing tasks reactively—defines lack of self-control. Routinely overfilling our days with activity means we ourselves are not in control of ourselves, our time—so we can’t possibly give control over to God.
The classic biblical text on over-activity is Luke 10, when Jesus dines with Mary and Martha and rebukes bustling Martha for being “worried and upset about many things when only one thing is needed.” The “one thing” he means is sitting and listening to him, which Mary is doing. Many have observed that Jesus seems almost unfair to Martha here—after all, didn’t someone need to cook for him? Who wouldn’t want a clean table and hot meal for Jesus if he dined with her?
But Mary’s natural disposition is my chief interest. Was she usually a low-key person or as efficient as Martha? Maybe she had a fast-paced disposition like mine and tended toward productivity. Maybe she was inclined to be a 20-task-a-day person but had learned self-control and trained herself to do only the most important things—like sitting with Jesus.
The hardest thing about revising down a long document to a short, compelling one is cutting text. Preludes, incisive points, examples—they all have to go. Only the best can stay, and figuring out what constitutes the “best” is the most grueling part. What activities might Mary have edited out of her evening to free herself to sit with Jesus, focusing exclusively on him? What would this look like if Mary were alive today and living in my world?
Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on June 7, 2007
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/461
Comments
Thanks for your thoughtful post! I'm often touched by Luke 10 - it's amazing how much that one passage holds.
The way that self-control over my time often looks is that when it's late at night and I finally get to see my husband and debrief about the day, we have to set a time limit on this in order to make sure I can still get up early enough to pray, journal, and read the Word. He likes to take his prayer time at the end of the day, so again, we need to limit our time so he can still do that before joining me in bed. This certainly doesn't happen every day, but the days when it does are better than those it doesn't!
This way of thinking is actually counterintuitive to how I always used to think though. It used to be that the end of the day was mine, and if I wanted to stay up late, so be it. Getting to class or work on time used to be my reason for waking up - now I crawl out of bed to pray. A worthwhile endeavor, but sometimes harder to be disciplined about! It's raised the stakes of getting to sleep on time.
Posted by: jane on June 9, 2007
your words struck a chord with me. "Editing" is not a word that I always associate with my time. But I'm drawn to the phrase "only the best can stay." And now for the grueling part....
Posted by: andrea on June 10, 2007
This is a particularly compelling and relevant piece for all men and women today. I concur with the author's premise and appreciate her wisdom.
Posted by: Kari on June 12, 2007
What if I dared to edit my life like that? Would it be more compelling, the projects I finish better, my life less watered down? Guilt compels me to be busy, but like my radishes, perhaps my fruit would be greater with some thinning. Thank you for your insight!
Posted by: Jeanette on June 13, 2007
As an editor, I am particularly struck by the accuracy of your analogy. Thank you!
Posted by: nab on June 13, 2007
This article puts a name on a sin that has been heretofore unknown to me except for its unfortunate consequences. Ah yes, now for the grueling part but it will be with the Holy Spirit! Thank you for your obediance to Him.
Posted by: Christina on June 15, 2007
The author's wise and pointed insights into the two ends of the "laziness pendulum" cut to the heart of the matter - are we self-sufficient or do we rely on His all-sufficiency? Thanks for so clearly (and concisely) challenging me to be more intentional, self-disciplined, and obedient to Him in my daily life.
Posted by: Lis on June 20, 2007
What a timely message! I have moved from a long hours office position to trying out the life of a free-lance writer, and the change has resulted in far less "editing" from a pre-established schedule and the needs of staff and customers. Thanks for your well-written reminder of the need for self-discipline as we live out our vocational callings, whatever they may be.
Posted by: hl on June 22, 2007
I have so often found that at the root of my busyness is pride and a pursuit of perfection even though doing excess activities never seems to result in perfection in any of them. It does take tremendous amounts of discipline to say no to doing those extra 10 things on my list and being happier when my husband comes home and willing to sit with him or rough housing with my son. Martha wasn't rebuked for serving and getting the meal ready but for worring and being so over-active. A simple meal would have been better than perhaps the elabarote one she was hoping to display- "... not all things are profitable", I Cor. 6:12.
Posted by: Emily on June 26, 2007
Thanks. I've never thought a jam-packed day filled with 20 activities.....could possibly be a lazy one.
How great to discover that the "one thing" Jesus meant is exactly the "one thing" David seek in psalm 27:4 "One thing I ask of the LORD,this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life..........
Emily, its a great post. Thanks for another insight on luke 10.
I'm Blessed!
Posted by: Nicole on June 29, 2007
Susan,
Thank you for your insightful thoughts! Nancy sent it along to me and I am challenged and inspired!!
Rea
Posted by: Rea Berg on July 2, 2007
Thanks for ur insight I am indeed blessed
Posted by: Essy on July 13, 2007
I liked the statement about acting without thinking is define as lack of self-control and the statement about revising down a long document to a short compelling text. Those statements encourage me to condense my work load and make life simple, to do what I can, with the energy I got!
Posted by: Tyrese Latae Redding on January 29, 2008