Toeing the Line
Or- Don't hand me no lines (of effort) and keep your hands to yourself.
Think.
Last week I introduced the analogy of the carnival horse race as a way to view the myriad tasks that fill our lives, and to help us prioritize the correct task at the correct time.
I have previously referred to these tasks as buckets of balls. The buckets are a way to organize our balls by categories.
The categories you select are entirely up to you.
My friend Fred has a fondness for F’s and found the buckets of Faith, Family, Fitness, Finance, Fun, Friends, Fulfillment, and Foundation, to be fully functional.
I do not have the same flair for alliteration and have settled on the buckets of Body, Mind, Spirit, Purpose, Relationships, and Responsibilities.
It can be helpful to think of these buckets as Lines of Effort or LOEs. In the military, Lines of Effort "link multiple tasks and missions using the logic of purpose—cause and effect—to focus efforts toward establishing operational and strategic conditions."
An example of this might be a village in Iraq that we hope to bring stability to. One LOE would be eliminating the bad guys, another would be helping to establish a police force, and another might be ensuring ample power and clean water are available.
I made the graphic below to help visualize how I view my Lines of Effort. I have previously likened these to Sisyphus’ task of rolling a giant boulder uphill, though we have multiple boulders on multiple hills to keep, if not moving continuously upward, at least prevent from rolling back towards the bottom.
Your job is to decide what your LOEs are, determine the tasks that fall under each, and then prioritize your efforts to keep the most important boulders (or horses, or balls, or plates) moving.
Read. Guide To Human
By Fred Dumar
Write.
Use this week to journal about your Lines of Effort and the critical tasks within each. How much time are you devoting to each task?
Repeat.
Words of wisdom from those who said it best.
It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
Theodore Roosevelt
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See you next Thursday!
Thanks for the shout out John. Our LOEs are very similar, but as you know...I just love dropping the F.
Hi John! Just discovered your Substack through Fred’s Note. I had never heard of LOEs until reading Fred’s post and now yours. I’m always looking for new frameworks to help organize my efforts at becoming a better dad and man overall. This is really useful, and I especially appreciate the graphic. Looking forward to checking out the YouTube channel, too. It’s great to see writers integrate video as well. Anyway, thanks!