Do you struggle to find the time to engage in family history? Have you read the words of Elder Scott to “Set aside things that don't matter. Decide to do something that will have eternal consequences.” (Elder Richard G Scott. The Joy of Redeeming the Dead, General Conference Oct. 2012) but just haven’t made it happen? Would you like to increase the time you devote to family history? Read below and see how you can increase your family history productivity.
The Law of Selective Neglect
Many people say they want to work on their family history, but they just don’t have time. There are just not enough hours in the day. They have to work, fix meals, interact with their family, and go to Church and church meetings. There is just not enough time.
The fact is, we all have the same amount of time. The only difference is what we decide to do with our time; how we apply the law of selective neglect to our days and weeks.
Have you ever thought that when you decide to do something you are deciding to not do anything else? If you decide to watch TV for 2 hours, you are also deciding not to do anything else during that time. You may not realize it, but with every decision to do something, you are deciding to neglect everything else.
If you are not engaging in family history, it is because you decided to neglect it in favor of something else. It may have been unconscious, but your decisions to do other things means you decided to neglect family history, and a bunch of other things.
So, how do you apply this law to family history? You decide to neglect something in your weekly or monthly plan in favor of working on your family history.
Scheduled vs Discretionary Time
Our days and lives consist of blocks of scheduled and discretionary time. Scheduled blocks include those activities that we feel we must do without exception--at the time they are scheduled, such as work (for most jobs), school, church meetings, etc. Discretionary blocks are those activities that we want to do, but where the time to do them is flexible, such as meals, recreational activities, personal reading, etc. Those things on your “to do list”.
One big difference between the two is that we usually accomplish scheduled activities and frequently change or adjust discretionary activities. For example, a friend asks you to go golfing Saturday afternoon. If you have a scheduled event (your brother’s birthday party) you would usually decline. On the other hand, if you had a discretionary activity (like working on family history), you may be inclined to think that you could do it some other time, and accept the offer to golf. In both cases, you are applying the law of selective neglect, the difference is that it is easier to choose to neglect discretionary activities than scheduled activities.
How do you enhance your time for family history, or reading the scriptures, or other important activities you do not want to neglect? You schedule time to do it, rather than adding it to your discretionary list. There is only one thing to do during scheduled time, but many things to do during discretionary time.
Schedule specific time for important things rather than saying “I'll work it into the schedule Tuesday or Wednesday.” Things will come up that you cannot miss, and the law of selective neglect will inadvertently wipe out many tasks you relegated to discretionary time.
There is a story about a busy woman who wanted to write her life story, but could just not get it done. Finally she decided that she would spend 15 minutes every Sunday after church to work on it. Ten years later she had hundreds of pages of story. She changed want to do, by scheduling 15 min per week. Applying these concepts to Elder Scott's admonition: "Schedule those things that will have eternal consequences, neglect those that don't matter as much."
