The Rabbi’s School of Time Management
If you’ve read Steven Covey, or even sat under the instruction of one who has, you’ll be familiar with the urgent/important matrix. More than just a time management principle, it’s a solid basis for prioritizing most anything in life.
The principle breaks our activity into four quadrants that looks something like my crude sketch.
Managing life or work this way depends on being able to distinguish between important and not, and urgent and not. Often related to crises, the Important and Urgent things are important (must be done) but are also urgent (must be done now).
Not Important and Urgent tasks look more like interruptions or distractions. These things don’t need to be done but they capture our attention because if they’re going to be done at all they need to be done now.
Not Important and Not Urgent activities don’t contribute to meeting our goals, but somehow lure us away into dorking around with them, keeping us from those things that matter.
It is understood by those who ascribe to this philosophy that high performing people and groups devote the greatest share of time and resources Important and Not Urgent activites — the prize behind Door Number Two. Important and Not Urgent are tasks that may not have time-sensitivity but are so crucial to accomplishing what we desire and becoming who we long to be.
High-value activities like planning, training and preparation.
High-value activities like exercising and eating right.
High-value activities like prayer and study and being with Jesus.
But in real life, when so much demands immediate attention, we throw out what packs the biggest punch in favor of what screams the loudest.
And so we spend more of our time on things that matter less.
I’m not teaching a class on time management, though I truly wish I’d have thought of Lazarus the last time I did. Because long before there was a Steven Covey, Jesus was already practicing one of the most foundational principles of time management ever known to man.
Jesus knew the impact of Important and Not Urgent.
Jesus got it.
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Res Ipsa Locquitur
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)
I drove to Minneapolis today for business. After the last exasperating detour finally guided me back on Highway 7, I looked up to see something incredible that I’d been missing in the midst of my asphalt frustration. The colors. It’s autumn, and spectacularly so. The trees in South Dakota turn in the fall too, but there are a limited number of them scattered throughout the state, and so they are much further apart and the effect is just not the same. There’s something particularly unmatched about the colors of fall in Minnesota.
Because I have a geeky mind instead of a normal one like yours, as I breathed in the beauty of the colors a phrase passed through my mind. Res ipsa locquitur. I don’t speak Latin. But sometimes I pretend to at work. I recently had to do some training and was reminded of the meaning of this phrase. It mostly has application in the legal field, and it means “the thing speaks for itself.” In my claims world, it usually comes up in a situation where there is simply no other explanation for an accident occurring than a certain party’s negligence. For instance, if a man is walking down the sidewalk and a television falls on his head, and another man had been carrying a television on the fire escape above him, there is really no other explanation than that the man carrying the television somehow dropped it. Res ipsa locquitur. The thing speaks for itself.
The colors of fall in Minnesota. Res ipsa locquitur. The thing speaks for itself. There’s no other explanation: God did it.
Paul writes to the Romans that ultimately, people have no excuse for not recognizing that God is. All that has been made points back to Him. No other explanation. The thing speaks for itself.
He echoes here in Romans what the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.”
That God created speaks for itself. Res ispa locquitur. It all points to Him as the only explanation.
Just like those colors, perfectly blended amongst the multitude of trees all over the roadside, God’s working in my life often also bears the marks of res ipsa locquitur. There are things that happen, things that I encounter, that simply have no explanation besides God’s engagement in my life. His working in my heart. His tapping at the side of my head.
God’s work often defies explanation at the same time it requires no explanation.
The thing speaks for itself. And I am without excuse.
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The Conversation