Important Tasks

Yesterday I removed an old apple tree stump from the yard. We replaced the old tree several years ago with a different variety and the root ball has been sitting next to the new young tree and serving as the heart of a weed patch in the front yard.

This is not a big deal. Our yard is large, mostly in front of the house, and is surrounded by untamed woodland. There are evergreens between the weed patch and the road. My clothesline with its sagging posts is nearby. No one trims under the other fruit trees in the yard or around the clotheslines poles. Ours is a country yard, not a manicured city lot. In context, the weed patch is not nearly the eyesore one might expect.

Still, yesterday was another beautiful spring day and I was lured into tackling the weeds. One thing led to another, the wheelbarrow was called into play, and the stump will now continue its decay in the woods rather than the front yard.

Was this an important task? No. It has not once earned a place on my to-do list. Was it urgent? Not at all. In fact, it's a prime example of the benefits of procrastination -- the longer it stayed there and decayed, the easier it was to break it apart for removal. Were there more important and urgent tasks on my to-do list? Absolutely. Just the thought of those very important and uncompleted tasks with their looming deadlines starts a tempest of anxiety within my mind.

So why did I choose yesterday to move the old stump out of the front yard? Why not complete the urgent and important tasks first and then reward myself by doing something more pleasant?

Two reasons. First, did I mention it was a gorgeous spring day? And not a single important and urgent task involved outside activity. I wanted to be outside more than I wanted to clear off my to-do list. But more than that, I'm beginning to realize that I am blessed with so many opportunities in life I could fill all my days doing urgent and important things and never get around to moving the old apple tree stump out of the front yard. Or writing posts such as this. If I ever cleared out all the clamor of my current to-do list, I would discover more opportunity to do more tasks that would look just as valuable as the ones currently clamoring for my attention.

I have often started an appointment-free Saturday with the realization that I could fill it completely with unfinished job-related tasks. Or church-related tasks. Or homeowner tasks. Or I could spend the entire day building relationships. Or I could catch up on reading and writing and sewing and other pleasurable tasks for which there is never enough time. I could fill such a day five times over! And at the end of that multiplied day I would discover more job- and church-related tasks, more projects to tackle around the house, more books to read, posts to write, more relationships begging for attention. And the weeds would still be growing tall around the old apple tree stump in the front yard because, with all those urgent and important tasks demanding my attention, it's not that big a deal to have one more weed patch in the yard.

In light of all this, I could make a resolution to deliberately devote some time every day to unimportant tasks that serve to refresh my soul. Or I could simply spend less effort fighting the siren call of such satisfying but unimportant activities. Sometimes I just need to shrug off the burden of overcommitment, go out in the sunshine and move old stumps, and let the to-do list deal with the resulting loss of time resources.

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