Do The Next Thing

Elisabeth Elliott is known for being the wife of Jim Elliott and for her authorship of Through Gates of Splendour, Passion and Purity, and many other books about living the Christian life through the most difficult of circumstances.  My strongest memory of her, however, will always be the time I heard her speak in person.  A group of friends and I took a road trip from Tulsa, OK to Little Rock, AR to see her speak at a church.  During the speech, she spoke little of the grand moves we make in life and much of the mundane - feeding your children, doing laundry, etc.  This was interesting for me as a college freshman, even though she was discussing things I had not experienced.  It is rare to hear a speaker talk about regular, everyday worship acts rather than the big stuff, especially someone who has experienced as much big stuff as she as.  At the end of the night, there was a question and answers time, in which someone asked what to do when they felt overwhelmed by how much they had to do.  Every college student in the audience perked up their ears, expecting profound advice on how to give your worries over to God.  Her advice was this, "Do the next thing.  Since it isn't possible to do everything at once and sitting there thinking about it just makes even less time, do the next thing."  I went back to my dorm room that night and printed, "Do the Next Thing" on a sheet of paper.  It hung above my desk for four years, and it is still in my mind today.

This is a time of year when I have a lot on my plate.  Our school does a lot of activities at the end of the year because everyone wants to do their thing for the last time.  There are senior night games, final concerts for band and chorus, and that one last time a club will get to meet.  There are NHS inductions, senior dinners, and of course, graduation.  As the yearbook teacher, I am involved in most of these to varying degrees.  Whether I am there to take pictures at the senior game or enjoy a strings concert, I am there.  In preparation for the senior dinner, my staff and I make posters with each senior's photo and the logo of their college/military/job choice.  This takes a fair amount of time, and some of the students don't make their choices until the day before the dinner.  I also speak at this dinner, so it is important to write the speech.  The yearbook staff also constructs the senior slide show for graduation, which incorporates music, photos, and quotes from each teacher.  Pulling all of that together takes time and must be copied onto a jump drive for each student so it can be included with the gift they will receive at graduation, a Bible which all of the teachers have written in.  Oh yeah, add to the list that I need to go sign the Bibles.  We hold a fine arts pep rally for the day of yearbook distribution, and that is a big day.  Every year, I forget something, like filling out the event request so that the IT department will know what I need (note to self:  do that today). We are changing the way we do that event this year due to the explosive growth of our student body, so I'm still trying to figure out how to deliver all the books between rallies.  This is all in addition to the regular teacher duties and exam writing and blog posting and faculty meetings and lunch duties.

Please understand that I am not complaining about ANY of this.  They are some of my favorite parts of the job and a big part of what makes GRACE so special.  It's just a lot of stuff in a short amount of time, and it can get overwhelming.  You have times like that too.  It may not be the same stuff, but it we all experience times when we have too much to do and not enough time to do it (or at least, it feels that way).    Let me expand a just a little on the advice of Elisabeth Elliott.

1.  Do the next thing.  I'm going to start with that because it is so powerful in its practicality.  As long as you aren't doing anything, you have the same amount of stuff to do.  Let this be the time when the urgent rules and do whatever is due next.
2.  Start whatever you can as early as you can.  I cannot start working on the senior slide show in August, but I can start it in March.  Doing a few students a day throughout the month of April is much less daunting than doing it all in May.
3.  Do whatever you can whenever you can.  This seems like the same advice as #2, but it isn't.  There are times when I am sitting in the car, waiting to meet my parents for dinner.  This is a good time to work on the slide show.  If I have ten minutes before my next class, I can cut out a few college logos for the posters.  During achievement tests, I stole the Bible pages (don't tell anybody because I wasn't supposed to do that) and signed them during the Language Mechanics test.  I am writing this blog post while subbing for another teacher who is on a field trip.  Making use of any time you have to do small things helps them not add up to big things.
4.  Remind yourself that you won't die.  This time period happened last year and the year before that (and for me, the ten years before that), and I'm not dead yet.  Exactly zero death certificates have read, "Cause of death: too much to do and not enough time to do it in."  Keep doing it, and you will eventually get a weekend to sleep in an extra hour.
5.  Decide what is important.  This can be tough because we often convince ourselves that it is all critical.  Maybe it all is, and maybe it isn't.  For each thing, decide not only if it is important but at what level.  It is very important to me that I speak at the senior dinner, but do I need to speak about five students and give each of them a personalized gift - probably not.  This year, I have chosen to speak about two.  It is important for me to write in every student's Bible, but they don't all need to be a long and drawn out message.  The fine arts pep rally matters, but the power point may not need to be as cute and "on-theme" as I usually make it.  We do some of this to ourselves, and it isn't always necessary.