The Coram Deo – achieving laser focus with a simple daily checklist

Coram Deo is a latin phrase.  I picked it up from Tim Challies’ book, Do More Better.  This is a really helpful little book on productivity that begins with some of the bigger principles and then moves on to go through practicalities.  Some of this gets quite specific in terms of using and how to use Evernote & ToDoist but even in these bits, the principles can be applied to any kind of note taking system or tasks management system.

Coram Deo “literally refers to something that takes place in the presence of, or before the face of, God. To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.”  ^{see  ‘What Does “Coram Deo” Mean?’ by R.C. Sproul.}

Here is the point.  I am to start my day with intentionality and with focus.  I want to begin the day by ensuring that my plan for the day is good and feasible.  Ideally, I will have done my main planning for ‘today’ yesterday afternoon or evening.  This time the day before is where I look at my calendar and choose my priority tasks and focus for the day.  Whilst this is a really good practice, it still pays to reflect on this plan the next day.

I have set up a checklist that I have called Coram Deo.  Again, an idea taken from Challies’ book.  At its core, the idea of this is to have a simple checklist that ensures that at the very start of each day, my plan for the day is consistent with this bigger purpose.  If you are not Christian and reading this, then the principle of having a short planning checklist to ensure your day matches up with your purpose is a really good one.

Here is my checklist:

• Pray for the Day ahead  (I pray that everything I do would be to the honour and glory of Jesus Christ)
• Check calendar for the next 3 days (I want to know what’s coming up so I can be adequately prepared)
• Check Projects for today (I want to know what I have decided to work on today and reconfirm that this is good and wise)
• Check Objectives for the day (I want to focus myself for the day on the 2 or 3 most important tasks)
• Plan in 20 minutes reading (this is my key habit and so I want to make sure I include time for it)
• Map out rough plan for the day (I don’t want to clog up my calendar with loads of little things but by filling out a morning, afternoon and evening list with the order in which I do things, I always know what to move onto next)
• Journal (5-10 mins) 

I do this every day, as far as I can.  It takes between 10 and 15 minutes and ensures that when I start my day, I know what I am intending to do, and I am satisfied that, to the best of my ability and knowledge, the plan will sit in the bigger purpose.

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