Being Productive, Organization

(v. 17, 27) Being Productive, Organization

"She sets about her work vigorously;her arms are strong for the task."  v. 17

"She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness."  v. 27

I thought and prayed about this one for awhile. I kept getting stuck with the face that my role models are not necessarily the most organized and productive women. Then it hit me...the role model for us can never be the Proverbs 31 woman. It will always be Jesus. So I thought about his life and what does it say to us about productivity and organization. He packed more into a day than any of us could ever hope to do. What were His secrets, not the woman’s secrets?
For starters, he is the only person to walk the earth that ever totally understood his purpose. Think about that. Wow! We can never hope to achieve that. However, we must seek God’s face constantly, daily, hourly...asking Him “what is my purpose for today, for my family, for my job?” Consider a previous blog that I wrote about the need for a focused life; a life's vision. 

    Jesus was on his way to save the dying son of the leader of the local synagogue, when a woman who had been bleeding for many years touched his garment and was healed. He stopped. He asked who had touched him. He spoke to her. We can’t organize our day to the point where we do not stop and minister to the person who God placed in our path.
He withdrew to pray. This secret cannot be overemphasized. Our productivity depends on the amount that we pray. If prayer is a one minute sentence on the way to work, we will not be very productive for that day, no matter how many tasks we accomplish.

   That being said, I constantly pray for God to make my brain organized for the tasks I will face today. I do not allow procrastination to creep into my life. Think back to our example of Jesus, he never procrastinated. When his father told him to do something, he did it immediately. I try to finish what I start and not leave the task until later. Another principle backed up by scripture.

    When God calls us to a job, we do not quit. When we get discouraged, we persevere. How many times in our home are we tempted to stop because a job got too big, too hard? The other secrets to being organized can be better stated by a truly organized person. I do not see that as my strength. I hate calendars. I hate a checklist. I do what I have to do to survive the day. But keep in mind; do not let your goal be organization. Instead let your goal be to become more Christ-like.

    For years, Mark and I used Calendar Creator. Mark and I would sit down the last day of the month and we would brainstorm everything we knew was happening that month, especially birthdays. That calendar was posted on the refrigerator. It included the weekly menus. Keep in mind that I needed it to be simple and so the menus did not vary that much. It only took about 30 minutes. Mark tries to keep me organized with my iphone and his iphone. I miss Calendar Creator, but also the season of life I was in.
I love my filing system. It helps me organize all my papers. We bought premade file tabs from The Container Store. I bought all the file folders and stuck on the labels that I needed. I try to file as often as possible. This system enables me to find everything that would be lost on my desk if I had not invested in this system. I could not survive without it. The hard part for me is the decision anxiety. Once I have plans made, I am more successful in implementing the plan.

   When reading these verses in Proverbs, keep in mind that God's plans for our lives are not to be a machine, moving through the day with precision and no wasted movements.  God's plan is to produce for the kingdom, not produce for the sake of producing.