How to Shelve
When, how and what to put away.
I love putting up shelves because it allows for the ultimate custom storage of your things. You can put them anywhere on almost any wall (watch out for wires). It gets things off the ground and off of your desk. It allows you to display things, and be neat about it. I could go on…
This weekend I began putting up shelves in our home. Before I could finish, I had to go attend to other things- Roy, my son, needed clean clothes at Grandma’s house. Currently, the wall behind my desk is pocketed with holes and brackets, the floor is stacked with the boards to be set upon them. I spent the few hours I meant to use putting the shelves up to spend time with my family who was over, all in town for my sister-in-law’s baby shower.
Do I feel bad about leaving my project undone? No. I know that I’ll get to it today tomorrow, or at the very least next weekend.
Maybe I won’t get to it until next month.
That isn’t ideal, but it is only one task in a continually growing series that accompanies having a job, having a baby in the house, having a new house, and striving to be the best husband, father, relative, and friend I can be. The unfinished project was an opportunity for me to examine my priorities, and how that relates to the order of operations of how I complete tasks.
The metaphor is helpful- in math, you complete everything in the parentheses first. You multiply before you add, and you divide before you subtract. in the same way, I order my life around the things I care about. Like PEMDAS (Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction), I have FFW.
Faith, Family, Work.
Faith is the net that keeps me centered. It is the thing that is required for all the other three, which sets the vibe of the day and pushes me onward. Without faith as the starting point, perhaps the rest of the list would have a different order.
Family is the people who come before all else in my life. I strive to be the best relative and friend that I can be, to be present and active and engaged with those closest to me. Am I perfect? No. Do I miss birthdays? Yes. But if someone calls, like my wife asking me to bring clean clothes for the baby, that comes first. Friends fall here as a sub-f, as they are part of what I consider my family.
Work comes after faith and people. It is required and a high priority and perhaps the longest list. It includes my job, my writing, and my housework. The list itself is ordered by the same FFW order.
The things I need to do and want to do are endless. The list grows, and many of those list items can’t be completed in a day, a week, a season, or a year. Making my priorities clear helps me understand what needs to be done first. Do you find yourself struggling with everything you have to get done? Try my order of operations, and apply those rules to what you have to do. Let me know if it helps get the important things done.