Order determines the success or failure of things; order is paramount.
Do the important things first, and what is important is what is critical.

First: The Order of Doing Things Determines a Person's Success or Failure

A confused person will be chaotic; one needs to emerge from confusion. Two people play chess, one wins, one loses. Why? Because one person makes the most important move each time, while the other does not. This is the difference between a winner and a loser. Some people think that since these things must be done anyway, they might as well take action and it doesn't matter which one they do first. But this is not the case. Order determines the success or failure of things; order is paramount. Do the important things first, and what is important is what is critical.

A person's resources in life are limited. Not doing important things leads to low returns and serious passivity. We are often passive in our work, overwhelmed and stressed. There is a very important concept: the horizontal axis is called important, the vertical axis is called urgent. If it is both important and urgent, do it. If it is neither important nor urgent, don't do it. If it is important but not urgent, you must strive to make time to do it. If it is urgent but not important, do it, but it's not important. I have summarized a personal rule: often do things that are important but not urgent.

Make a plan. Without a plan, you won't know what's important, what to do first, and what to do later. Why does doing important but not urgent things solve many problems? Our busyness is due to a lack of skills; no matter how busy we are, we are not efficient. If a person is busy, they must first solve the problems of skills, efficiency, and innovation. That is very important, but not urgent. For example, my reading speed is relatively slow, but my workload per day is very large. I decided to improve my reading speed. I bought a lot of books and practiced my reading speed, and as a result, my work efficiency doubled.

If a person is busy, there must be a problem. Today we are in an era of competing for creativity, and creativity can subvert previous efficiency. A busy person is definitely not a smart person. Today we must classify things. Many of the problems we value are not important. I have come all the way with few resources, so I struggled into my fifties. But if a famous person could give me some guidance, it could save me a lot of road.

Some time ago, I liked to learn from some powerful people, to understand what books they read. They are experts in that industry, standing on the shoulders of others. Today we must learn to be smart, which is to use resources. Let me give another example. A father owns a woodworking factory, but his son refuses to work in his father's woodworking factory no matter what. His father has already developed a market. Why not work with his father? They insist on competing and doing it themselves. These are not smart people. To live abundantly, many young people want to pursue and have this experience. When Li Si was young, he saw in the countryside that the rats in the toilet lived miserably, while the rats in the granary lived comfortably. Why is there such a world of difference between the same rats? Because the places they are in are different. Life is like playing a game of chess. If you always make the important move, you will definitely be a winner; if you always make an unimportant move, it is difficult to win. Your life is the result of every choice you make.

Second: The Most Important Step for Christians Is to Grasp God

For a Christian, I am very clear that my most important step is to grasp God, which does not mean that I do nothing at all. The Bible says: If you carefully observe and follow my ways, I will bless everything you do. The most important thing in life is to avoid curses and seize blessings. Although I do not have a good family background, I have God and the ability to be prescient. Seizing the most important things can seize the initiative. We cannot be led by things; seizing the initiative is seizing the first move. There is also the issue of the first move in chess. Always maintain the initiative and don't be passive. If you are in a passive state today, then reversing passivity must start with doing the most important thing. I have developed a habit of rarely going to bed before two o'clock. Because often being passive requires reversal, constantly being in a process of changing from passive to active.

I think the most important things in a person's life are a few. Cultivating one's inner abilities is key. For example, I read slowly, process emails slowly, and am sometimes overwhelmed. If I had solved the problem of reading speed when I was young, I would have benefited greatly in the future. Improving one's abilities and efficiency is a good habit. Creativity is a very powerful thing. Because I changed one thing, the return was tenfold. For example, when I was doing software development, there were many things that were not right. Users made a request and gave it to the programmer, who showed it to the user. The user wanted to add this and that, but the programmer said it wouldn't work. The person writing the user requirements didn't think it through. If it is changed, all previous efforts will be wasted; if it is not changed, the problem solved is not very satisfactory. So I proposed a rapid software development method. I implemented this method in my work, and all aspects of the problems quickly disappeared, and efficiency increased many times over. I saved the company a lot of software development costs. There is also another one. For giant software, I designed a new software structure that can be changed at will without causing collapse problems. When people solve the most important problems, the problems disappear.

Today's education should not hit the target. Our education is to shape people's character and abilities. To build people's character, the center point is: one is faith, the other is doing things. People learn through doing things, which is the most effective. Why has a person become a loser after many years of education? Because they lack confidence, and confidence is the core of a person's character. The road of this faith was opened by the patriarch Abraham, later revealed by Jesus Christ, and later I inherited it. I have an uncompromising faith. As long as I grasp this matter, I will use faith to resist until it is completed.

Third: How to Grasp the Most Important Things

Learn to innovate. I have a dream: software can greatly free up our manpower and resources in pastoral care, teaching, and learning. I will implant artificial intelligence into this kind of software. Today we are in the era of Industry 4.0. The previous industrial revolutions liberated people's physical strength, and the new generation of industrial revolution will liberate people's mental strength. The most important thing in education is to train people's character, and the core of a person's character is faith.

I have found that those who are impetuous have fallen, and those who are not impetuous, those who are down-to-earth, have risen. Improving one's abilities is very important. What is the most important thing in our lives? Maslow's five needs, the highest is the realization of human value. The realization of human value is the most important. Dreams are very important. Why are people unhappy even though they have food and drink? Because that is a very low-level need. If the realization of a person's self-worth is achieved, they should be happy. That is, we have grasped the essence of human existence, which is happiness and joy. No longer living for basic living needs, but also not lacking. Being a blessing to others is key to realizing our self-worth. The most important thing in a person's life is eternal life. Without eternal life, this life is all emptiness; the second most important thing is joy. Joy comes from being a blessing to others. We serve with all our hearts and treat making money as secondary. If a person makes making money the most important thing in their life, then money will crush them. Don't be impetuous. Impetuousness means not understanding the priority of things.