The central struggle of my life is to do the things that are important to me. I have a long list of items both large and small that I’d like to accomplish. I get the short-term tasks done on an almost random basis. I procrastinate on the long-term ones, the ones that require sustained effort. Too often, I start-stop-start-stop repeatedly, or simply abandon projects as requiring more time and energy than I have to give. The necessary daily chores and unnecessary daily obsessions make it easy for me to avoid actually making any forward progress on the big things.

Steven Covey’s ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ is the dominant business management tool regarding this issue. You’ve probably read it. He ripped off the best ideas in the field of time management, spun them into cotton candy, and added a bunch of cool buzzwords. Managers love Covey, and he makes a lot of sense to me. He talks about figuring out what’s really important to you, and prioritizing everything based on his Four Quadrants matrix.

Quadrant II is supposedly where all the good calories live. The one where things are Important But Not Urgent. The ones that will make long-term changes in the quality and nature of your life. I lived by Covey’s principals at my previous job, which was incredibly pressured and fast, and they made a big, positive difference in my ability to get through any given day at work.

But I never seemed to be able to apply them in my real life.

I’ve been busy, but aimless, much of the past year. Rachael grew up, and my life got a lot simpler, with more free time and money available. I miss her terribly on a daily basis, but I’m actively, with few conflicts, in the process of doing something about that, with planned motorcycle runs to Austin damn near every weekend.

Using Covey’s matrix lets me track the things I should be doing. But I still too often don’t do them. Something is missing in it, or in me.

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Here’s some more country-rock for those of you who may not normally listen to C&W.

Travis Tritt asked his buddy, Billy Bob Thornton, to star in the vid. They made a nice little mini-movie.

I get bulemic when forced to listen to bland, gutless poppy nu-country, but this brand of roadhouse get-down starts my tractor up. It’s often about irresistably bad women, and doing stupid shit that you pay for in the end.

‘Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde’ is an excellent example of the genre. Turn it up loud and click the pic:

Billy Bob also starred in the movie ‘Friday Night Lights’. This past Friday night, I started watching the tv series, which has the entire past season on-line for free. Caroline was right. It’s effing brilliant. And it’s Texan, not Hollywood b.s.

And, an X-Degrees of Separation thing — My roots are in Hemphill, Texas. My parents once seriously considered buying and running an old broken-down hotel a block off the town square there. It was famous (within a twenty-mile radius, anyhow) for having hosted the original Bonnie and Clyde briefly. The story goes that the Sheriff in Hemphill assiduously avoided the hotel vicinity that week.

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