Events - Major and mundane

For lack of a better term, we use the word “event” to indicate the actions we take each day. These are tasks we perform that, taken together, amount to real progress in life.

Nothing gets done by simply dreaming of grandiose goals. Somewhere along the way that vision gets translated into tiny steps each day.

I watched Apollo 13 the other night. It called to mind the millions of small tasks that combined to put a man on the moon. If you’ve ever mapped out a project you know there are several step involved in even the smallest project. Just imagine all the steps and timelines involved in a space shot.

Our lives are made up of small events that add up to a finished goal. Take something as insignificant as making a batch of cookies. There are perhaps twenty steps involved in making cookies. When the recipe calls for a teaspoon of salt you simply reach in the cupboard for the container.

If you are out of salt, the project comes to a halt. Perhaps when you bought that container of salt two years ago you weren’t thinking about that particular batch of cookies at the time. That doesn’t matter; you had the salt when you needed it. But the important thing is that in a past event you did something that enabled you to complete the project today.

You need to start thinking in terms of tasks or events that make up your day. When YOU control the events of the day, and when those events are selected as part of a plan to move your life forward toward your goals, you are living your life “on purpose.”

And great things are accomplished when you control the events in your life.

Of course, when you spend the day putting out fires and doing the tasks dictated to you by inertia, you will reach your goals only by chance.

Planners are much more than to-do lists, for they strive to help you remember and achieve your goals. They do this by making the vision real through accomplishing the tasks that lead to meaningful goals.