About a year and a half ago I had the chance to grab lunch with a very accomplished thinker, educator, author, minister-type.

He has done so much over the course of his life, so I just had to ask, “how do you do it all?”

I was a little surprised by his response:

Sleep is overrated!

He went on to say how the first thing he plans to ask God upon arriving in heaven is, “what’s up with sleep?  It seems to me we could have been a lot more productive if we wouldn’t have needed that.”

I personally like sleep, but increasingly I’ve come to understand what he was saying.

There’s a lot of good stuff out there.  A lot we can give ourselves to.  But, when life gets too full, what gives?

Because something’s got to!

We’ve all been there… or maybe we live there.

We find ourselves pursuing so many good things that life simply seems too full… and we know we cannot continue on at our current pace for much longer.

Whether we consciously choose what we eliminate (or temporarily sideline) from our schedules or not, we know that without a change to our current pace of life, our quality of life will continue to decline… as likely will our quality of output in all of the good things we’re trying to be a part of.

So what goes first for you?

Or maybe the better question is, how are you deciding ‘what gives’?

Are you consciously choosing what you eliminate from your schedule… what gets bumped from the list of “to-dos” for today… to tomorrow… or sometime later.  Or is that decision being made much less intentionally, and more by they tyranny of the urgent?

Are there nonnegotiables for you — for every day?  If so, what are they?  Have you ever thought about it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!