time well spent

some might say blogging isn't time well spent, but i do it anyway.  this is the last of my gratitude posts.  i wasn't sure what i would write, but then after a conversation with my mother on the phone i decided on a topic. i was telling her about our relief society lesson on sunday.  it was based on a talk by president uchtdorf in conference this last session.  a lot of people liked his talk and refer to it as the "simplify" talk.  it's true, he does talk about simplifying our lives.  what got me, though, was how he directed us to do so.  he said we should focus on four relationships: god, family, others, self. our teacher on sunday pointed out that it should be in that order.  i'm a to-do-lister and often those things on my list don't get done or don't get done in a timely manner.  lately i've been trying to make myself plug tasks into time slots - to help pace myself.  that hasn't really worked all that effectively, though, since i'm the boss and often tell myself i can do what i want.  anyway, after the lesson on sunday i got wondering if maybe i should try organizing my list into those four categories: relationship with god, relationship with family, relationship with others, and relationship with self.  i think it's easy to tell myself that a certain task is not important or just something making me busy.  if i look at a particular task, though, from the perspective of how it might improve one of those four relationships, then i think/hope that the task will take on new meaning and significance.  i'm pretty socially motivated.  if a task is all about bonding with someone then i enjoy it a lot more. i think if i can see a lot of my tasks as bonding with "someone" then i'll enjoy it more.  when president uchtdorf gave the talk i was initially drawn to the idea of having more charity for myself as i improve my relationship with myself, but really, i think when i work on my relationship with god or others or family i really am feeling better about myself and in effect i'm strengthening my relationship with myself.  i think that's why putting it in the order he did is so significant.  anyway, i haven't started organizing myself according to those categories yet, but i intend to next week (i try to schedule myself a week at a time).  what do y'all think?  really you should check out his talk yourself, if you haven't for a second or third time.  so anyway, today i am grateful for my many relationships - all of them!