Procrastination – the Thief of Time

Thomas Jefferson said, “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today!” Seems I’ve known those words all my life. My Mom quoted them to me when I’d wait to study for a test until the last minute or wait to practice my piano until the day of my next lesson. But, here I am, many years later, still procrastinating on things I should get done TODAY!

My pal of over seven years is my workhorse laptop. I'm guilty. I've overfed it with tons of data input, word processing, graphics, and publishing projects. From a vast array of mistreatment, I noticed it was getting sluggish and its performance was lackluster. I started getting annoyed at my faithful friend and started whining about it instead of taking it in for a "medical" check-up. I kept waiting on it, sometimes up to 20 minutes, while the little circle on the screen, just spun. I procrastinated on getting something done about it….and it was stealing my time.

When my patience was at its limit two weeks ago, I decided to rid myself of the daily laptop burden I was carrying. I searched and found a computer technician in my community. I had to release my devoted, faithful laptop for a week, but today I am typing this post on my completely healed and whole, refurbished computer with a new solid-state drive, upgraded operating system, cleaned out from the seven years of gunk build-up inside, and it is now moving faster than a speeding bullet – well maybe not quite that fast, but let’s just say, what took 20 minutes before, is less than a minute now. Whoo Hoo! My faithful pal has been restored and I'm its happy user again.

Why oh why did I wait so long? I “put up with” my pal's flaws and procrastinated. I thought I was just too busy to stop and “smell the roses”, or rather, stopping to find a technician. We may not stop to go to the doctor about an annoying physical issue, or going to the gym to work off some of those Christmas treats, or better yet, stopping to have a little talk with Jesus to make everything right. Instead, we just keep “putting up with” issues and procrastination gets the best of us!

It's time to come to a screeching HALT and evaluate those annoyances and do something about them TODAY. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. It’s the little things that have a HUGE impact on our energy, how we feel, and even on how much we produce. It's time to stop complaining about this or that and do something about this or that TODAY! When we change our old patterns from “putting off till tomorrow", we’ll be more productive, having better time management, better health, having more friendships, more quality family time, and business success.

Knights of The Round Table

As I walked yesterday, randomly, I heard these words “Knights of the Round Table”. When out-of-the-blue thoughts come like that, I know a blog post subject has come to me, so I best start meditating and researching it. And I did. I’m quite sure this is what prompted it.

As most mornings at the Wallace’s, there is strategic family training and devotion time – sometimes it is a few minutes and, then like yesterday morning, it may be a robust hour of intense discussions and trainings. Staci was not just in her loving Mama mode, but this day it was Coach of the Year kind-of-motivation and inspiration. This day (see her sketched training) she talked to us about time management. It was training that reminded me of her daddy’s strict coaching that had tremendous results in who she is today. Her goal was to compete in basketball, but she was 1/3 the size of girls who could be easily identified as amazons (tall, strong and sometimes, burly) compared to her. He schooled her in “If you want to compete at that level, you’ve got to spend triple training time than them.” That was the “Urgent/Important” quarter on her page. She had to use her time effectively in reaching her goals. Today, in her business trainings, she always talks about her dad and the positive influence he had on her in business, her spiritual and personal life. Yesterday I saw my girl, doing what her daddy did for her – she knows her children are her greatest assets – just like her daddy and I knew that about our kids. It was worth every effort to see who they have become today.

Now, I segue back to that thought as I was walking today…..the Knights of the Round Table. It occurred to me that is what we're doing when we are infusing into those we love – the skills, abilities, knowledge, wisdom, character, and all the other characteristics of strong leaders who are successful in every area of life. Though it hasn’t been proven that King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table were historical or only a legend, what I read from Simple English Wikipedia, are qualities that I see are being taught and instilled into the Wallace’s knight and lady of the rectangle table at their home. I share this today because I'm convinced that the more we take the time to invest into our loved ones by instilling the principles for success in life from God's Word and other successful leaders and role models, the more we'll witness our next generation of Godly leaders in their homes, their businesses and their country.

The Knights of the Round Table were the best knights in King Arthur's kingdom, and lived in King Arthur's castle, Camelot. They were called the Knights of the Round Table because of a special table that was in Camelot, that was round. This meant that everyone who sat around it was seen as TRUSTWORTHY and EQUAL. In order to become a Knight of the Round Table, a knight had to prove he was chivalrous (polite) enough. In the legend, the knights swore a Code of Chivalry, which is much like an oath is today. They promised to uphold the rules given to them. The Knights were men of courage, honor, dignity, courtesy, and nobleness. They protected ladies and damsels, honored and fought for kings, God and their country.

So how’s that for being a Knight of the Round Table? Sounds like some good advice for all of us today, whether we are a knight or a lady. Reading up on the Knights of the Round Table was an interesting take on my day, but here’s the bottom line of this thought. Our authentic, true and real history lesson is found in our King of Kings Who isn’t a legend, but He gave us rules of conduct, honor, and integrity to live by in His Word, and the most important of which is found in the words of Jesus, in Matthew 22:37-39 "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is exactly like it: ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’" Jesus gave us the keys to success in every area of our lives when He gave us these two COMMANDMENTS (not suggestions)….when we put God first and we love others as ourselves, then who we are and everything else we do will make us worthy of more than knighthood, but it will be sons-and-daughter-hood of our Father and King of Kings and Lord of Lord. Now that's a lesson to learn around our tables at home!