Topic: Dailies

ABC Projects

by

Leo Crocker Rogers

We all have projects: Purchase a new dress; repair a garbage disposal; write a letter; check e-mail; prepare dinner; balance the check book; pick up a child from soccer; wax the car; prepare a brief; help a friend; go to church; watch a favorite T.V. program.

All projects can be placed in a category: A: Must be done: repair the toilet. B: Go to Church. C: Watch T.V.

The problem is that C projects are the easiest to do, then the B, then the A, so the willingness of a person to do projects is inversely proportional to their need to be done.

C projects often take less time to accomplish so at the end of the day, one can say, I did five projects. This compares to having to tear apart the toilet, purchase the parts, repair the toilet and then do it again after it leaks.

C projects are often more appealing. It is certainly more enjoyable to watch 24 than to go to Church. While both are passive, 24 does not expect us to do any thing as a result of listening as does Church.

A projects on the computer are like any A project, they are not to be interrupted. So not checking e-mail while working on the checking account is like not answering the phone when repairing the toilet. The clear need is for focus.

France has not always treated Lance Armstrong kindly – be it in aggressive newspaper columns or in narrow mountain passes where fans stand inches away from his face. Armstrong endured one of the most harrowing experiences of his career last year, in a time trial up the famed L'Alpe d'Huez mountain. People spat on him, threw beer in his face, yelled insults. With his eyes staring ahead, Armstrong powered through them all to win the stage with a stunning display of single-mindedness. He admitted afterward that he was deeply upset. The A project got done.

"Jesus saith ... Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death. Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands"

Interruptions burn steaks. Answering the phone, watching T.V., visiting the neighbor when cooking steaks is a sure fire way of preparing dinner twice. The distracted man burns.

Bloated talk can make a C project feel like a B project. Consider this and that and when to do this and that and with whom to do this or that can really burn one’s time. Deciding where to dine is a 5 minute C project and joy. When the decision takes 45 minuets it has become an A project in time when a real A project did not get done. The C project of where and when and to eat lunch can take more time than the A project of church.

A projects need to be listed. The time of accomplishment needs to be set. The parameters of support of the project need to be predetermined. So done, they get done. Not so done, the default is to fill in the spare time with C projects, easy, fast, good feeling.

The manner in which one starts the day, almost always determines if A or B or C projects are going to get done, if any. Procrastination is setting the snooze alarm, C projects are on the way. Up, showered, and dressed with a list being reviewed while eating breakfast is the harbinger for an A project day. Slow starts can never be made up by sprinting at the end of the day, so guess what happens. One stretches the day. The person works longer hours and into the night. Result, the person goes to bed later, and if they even want to get up for an A day the next day, they are too tired to do so.

Procrastination is a C life no matter how you arrange it. Promptness is an A life, and it cannot be helped. Even the slow thinker (the turtle) when starting early, gets more done than the quick thinker (rabbit) when at the start line the turtle is ready and the rabbit is searching for the snooze button the second time.

One either orders their day or the chaos of the day orders them. Can you imagine the tomatoes, lettuce, mustard, ketchup, bun, and hamburger getting together through out the day and talking to the cook saying, "You know, we can really put together a good sandwich sometime today. As each of the ingredients talks to the cook, time is consumed. Sure eventually a burger is produced, but the cost in time is large. Days are like that, phone calls, unscheduled visits, "time outs", snacks, etc. can run one’s day. The result is a one sandwich day and that is all. We order the day or the day orders us.

Systems are orderly or they are random. "Honey, where are the keys?" " Were we supposed to be there at 7:00 O’clock, I thought you said 8:00, and it is 7:30 already." Knowing when and where things are supposed to happen is important. There are athletes that arrive the wrong day for a race and the race was half a world away. There are attorneys that arrive at the wrong court, doctors that remove the wrong leg, and parents that forget to pick up their children from school, much less single people not arriving for dates on time. Our life is systemized to know when and where and with whom or it is like a ping pong ball in a clothes dryer – a good picture of a person’s brain that is habitually late, always active, always tumbling

If it feels good, do it. That is the name of many a C project. Of course A projects do not feel good. If they did, they would have already been done. It is tough to do the meaty things in life, but if such projects do not get done, life becomes a C event.

An A project is winning the Tour de France. A C project is winning a stage of the Tour de France. It takes a calmness, a strategy (short for having thought about the project) to win the Tour. A project people are not frantic, seem to know what they are doing, have extra time that C project people do not have, and have a smile of goodness, not a shrug of the shoulders with an "Oh, well."

Concentration gets things done. Being willy nilly does not. This is not to say that being free-wheeling in thought does not have its place, but the place is going to be a C project place, fun, perhaps exciting, and certainly time consuming. We all love that. Unplanned trips where one wanders from place to place finding new and unexpected friends, seeing things one would never have known existed, and having a good nights rest in pleasant new surroundings does not put a man on the moon, land airplanes safely, produce products for low cost, reduce waste in fuel and time, keep mother earth in order. Lack of order begets lack of order and lack of order is waste. One can call it fun, and it may well be, but there is a cost.

1 Be early.

2 Keep desk clear.

3 Make lists that are prioritized.

4 Do not postpone decisions.

5 Set dates and times for accomplishments.

6 Do A’s first, B’s second, C’s last. Get tough.

Sitting on a park bench I can hear the words, "My mother always said,’when the goen gets tough, the tough get goen." Make today an "A" day. "Hayray. I had and Aday."