Daily Dose 40: Attend

Here is where to begin reading Daily Dose 31-40 in order.

When we attend an event, we make any necessary preparations (mark the calendar, change clothes, gas the car,  leave in time) to get where we need to be to participate. When we attend to our children, we focus on what they need and do it without distraction. Soldiers called to attention, put themselves in an alert and ready position to hear actively and to respond immediately to whatever they are ordered to do. Students attend class, which should mean complete preparation out-of-class of anything needed to participate competently in class, rather than (too often) being marked physically present in class, even though the mind, engagement, and focus are elsewhere and course work is incomplete or undone.

In spite of the fact that most people come home after school, work, church, and outings with a mind to relax, attending ought be the operational attitude of those in the home, particularly for the executive overseeing its operation. As a time tool, it is the operating partner with automation to give us a balanced approach to handling responsibilities. Along with activities we can automate, are many activities requiring intentional attention:

Attend Activities

• Under-the-radar items

  Long term crucial tasks for being well-rounded and well-balanced in life, but which are also not clamorous or demanding short term attention, making them easy to let slide until they are forgotten…so, when was the last time you read a good book that broadened your vision for the world? (I’ll take any chance to justify reading, you know.)

• New Habits, Processes, and Skills

  We go a long way toward helping ourselves when we give new things in our lives more concentrated time.

• Training Apprentices

  Being in the room during early training times is crucial. Active review of already learned chores or tasks is imperative. We are training, not just shoving tasks we don’t want to bother with onto someone else.

• True Emergencies, Sickness, and Dangers

  Some situations require constant monitoring and our present attention. They should be few, but we should recognize when we are being “called to attention” by such events. Some people make everything a “last minute, unexpected” crisis because they have learned it is an effective way to get extra help, extra sympathy, and extra allowance for not having done what should have been done in advance with timely preparation and adequate foresight. Living from crisis to crisis does not count as a true emergency in priority stewardship. True emergencies are facts of life beyond our ability to oversee, rather than the end result of us not overseeing.

Intentional Attention

Intentional attention is not a redundancy, but a specific action sequence we apply to activities requiring the Attend treatment.  We help ourselves Attend properly when we:

• think through the best time(s) to do the activity requiring Attention
• think through what is required for the activity to be successful
• during EO, record specific times we will do the activity
• do the activity consistently when we said we would (!)
• reschedule an alternate time BEFORE not doing it at its assigned time
• investigate ourselves when we observe we often reschedule or continue to neglect an Attend activity
• determine why we continue to neglect an Attend activity and take steps to correct the problems
• Link Attend activities to more automated habits as prompts (I won’t eat breakfast until I have had devotions)
• Schedule evaluation times to examine how things are going