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I was sitting down for quiet time today… when my son, Kyran, came in and showed me the paper airplane he just made. It looked really strange, and the middle part opened up to be kind of a sideways cup. I asked him to explain what was going on there. He said “it didn’t really work as an airplane, so I turned it into a popcorn holder too!”

I thought it was funny, but a real life lesson for me. How often, when something isn’t going right, do I add things to it to try to fix it, even understanding that’s not the solution?!? How often do I get distracted from the real task of making a working airplane and end up doing something on the side that feels productive but takes even more focus away from where it should be? For me, it is clear that making the airplane a popcorn holder will always make the airplane worse than it would be if it had a single purpose, but that wasn’t clear at all to Kyran. 

This has really caused me to think, I do the same thing except with people and projects. Is it needing to appear productive for other people? Is it the ease of doing a small side-project I know I can win instead of tackling the greater projects I’m not sure about?

When I think of this I am reminded of Warren Buffet’s advice: write down your top 25 things you want to accomplish in life. Now, circle the top 5. The top 5 are your goals. Your other 20 are your avoid at all costs list. Most people never accomplish anything in life because there are too many competing goals and goals absolutely have diminishing returns.

What are my top 5? Focusing on being the leader of Equip Mozambique. Yes, I can be filling out grants or applications or financial records or coding. But I need to be leading. I need to take a stand and, instead of saying “no one else is doing this so I guess I have to”, say “no one else is doing this so it won’t be done until I find someone who can do it”. I always try to be helpful but that means in a given day I am fixing printers, working with email and doing a bunch of things that other people really should be working on.

I also need to get my God time sorted out. I used to do it in the morning when I woke up, but now I have a giant list of issues to deal with as soon as I wake up, and I only have 2 hours where Mozambique and the US business times overlap. NO checking my email or WhatsApp before I spend time with God.

An intensive/rest time with God can give God the opportunity to work with you to root out what’s causing this to be such a stronghold in your life. The challenge here is to press through and actually start doing it.

If it doesn’t fit into my top 5, forget it. It’s like adding a popcorn holder to an airplane.