Arrange your iPhone app icons to remind and train yourself to focus on what’s significant and important and not just the urgent things.  Start with the top level apps and work your way down daily. (Apps above are just an example and should be personalized according to your own priorities and significant aims for your life.)

 
Have you ever noticed when glancing at some one else’s arrangement of App icons on their phone, that they usually reflect the way the way they live and interact with others?  Until recently, I had my mail app on the second “page” of my apps on my iPhone because I didn’t want to see how many unread messages I had accumulated on all my several email accounts.  But recently, while preparing for my family’s New Year tradition, I realized that I can arrange the icons on my phone to help arrange my life so that I won’t miss out on the significant things in my life.

Every year, since I can remember, my wife, kids, and I have started out the New Year dealing with the past, reflecting on the present, and setting our goals for the New Year.  We spend time having our family Communion time, but before that we take time to clear our consciences with each other and with God.  After a brief prayer, we two by two go to another part of the house to talk about and ask forgiveness for offenses over the past year between each other.  Then we come back together and write out a personal list on our own in private of sins that we have committed against God or struggled with the past year.  We come together and read about God’s promises to forgive our sins (I John 1:9) and then we burn the list, cementing in our minds and spirits that we are forgiven and they are gone! (Hebrews 8:12. Ps 103:2).  

Next we read about Jesus when he was almost a teenager in Luke chapter 2 keying in on verse 52. This verse says Jesus increased in Wisdom, Stature, Favor with God, and Favor with Man.  In other words, He grew and developed Intellectually, Physically, Spiritually, and Socially.  We then write goals for the New Year for each of those four areas.  And this year, I decided that I would arrange the app icons on my iPhone’s first screen with them grouped and arranged in this order so that I can meet my goals in these four core areas:  

• First level: Apps that deal with my Spiritual Development including Worship, Meditation, Reflection, and Prayer
• Second level: Apps that deal with my Stewardship including Physical Health, Planning/Time, Finances, and Creativity
• Third level: Apps that deal with my Intellectual development including Learning, Reading, Writing and Math
• Fourth level:  Apps that deal with my Social development and interaction including Communication, Arts, Mind, and Tools

The First Level apps deal with things that are Significant: things that matter the most and for the longest (even after I pass away into Eternity).

The Second and Third Level apps deal with the things that are Important: things that really matter.

The Fourth Level apps deal with things that are Urgent:  things that matter now.

The problem we often face is we are often spending our time on our iPhone, or smartphone, on the Fourth Level urgent things and don’t make time for the First, Second, and Third level, or the Significant and Important things.   So now, when I begin the day, I don’t jump to the fourth level apps, like email, news, or social media, I start at the First Level apps, for those things that are Significant and empower my life: worship, reflection, meditation, and prayer.

Why not rearrange and group the icons on your iPhone, or smartphone, and arrange your life for what matters most for the longest time and insure you aren’t letting the urgent things make you miss out on what’s Significant and Important?

“No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” Philippians 3:13-14 | NLT