I’m a big believer in to-do lists, and really can’t get by without one, as I explained in a prior post. However, I’ve also noticed there’s a limit to how many of my problems such a list can really solve. I often catch myself thinking that, if only I had a better system, I’d reach the mythical state of my daydreams – the one where I can just sit back and relax, contented, knowing that I’ve done everything I ought to do, everything I want to do, and everything someone else needs me to do. Of course, this will never happen. Part of the reason is, as Jesus says in Luke 17:10:

…So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’

That is, the absolute best I could possibly do – even if I do everything perfectly – can merely meet, but never exceed, God’s standard.

Aside from the impossible nature of that standard, though, there’s also the reality that my task backlog can never be solved by having the right system. Partly, it’s an operator problem. I take on too much, I manage my time imperfectly, and I prioritize inadequately. A Wired magazine article captured this well some months ago. Here are some great observations:

The problem is that we too often don’t really plan. Digital apps make it easy to add more tasks to the pile, and it feels good to get tasks out of our … heads. So we do, frenetically.

“People feel that when they put all their tasks somewhere, they’ve already done most of the work,” Perchik says. But it’s an illusion. The pile of work is still there…

To-do lists are, in the American imagination, a curiously moral type of software. Nobody opens Google Docs or PowerPoint thinking “This will make me a better person.” But with to-do apps, that ambition is front and center. “Everyone thinks that, with this system, I’m going to be like the best parent, the best child, the best worker, the most organized, punctual friend,”…

…we overload ourselves with more than we can accomplish and create Lists of Shame because we are terrible at grasping how little time we actually have…

If those aren’t enough, the article also connects our problem with to-do lists with the limited time we have here on earth. That is, part of why we have so much trouble managing tasks is that life is short, and there’s more we would like to do than we can ever manage to do before we die:

…we need to grapple with the finite nature of our time on Earth. This is the black-metal nature of task management: Every single time you write down a task for yourself, you are deciding how to spend a few crucial moments of the most nonrenewable resource you possess: your life. Every to-do list is, ultimately, about death.

This takes me back to the fall of mankind in Genesis 3, when, after Adam and Eve sinned, death entered the world, limiting our time on earth. Not only that, but work became harder. They were told (Gen. 3:17-19, NASB):

Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground…

The curse, then, meant they would have to labor much harder to even stay alive and sustain themselves. When would this toil end? They were told it would last until they “return to the ground” or die. In modern terms, that to-do list will remain too full until we die.

What hope, then, is there for us? Believers are promised this curse will one day be undone when Christ comes again and brings about a new heavens and a new earth, one in which we will live with him forever and have the rest and joy we so long for. This temporary life is pictured as a race (e.g. 1 Cor. 9:24-27, 2 Tim. 4:6-9), one where we persevere so we can obtain the prize at the end. I’ve run in a few races in my time, and in the Christian life I find myself needing to remember – I’m always longing for the finish line by the time I get there. Why should it be any different in the Christian life? No task management system will bring me the rest I long for; it’s only to be found in and through Jesus Christ.