The Sin Log Exercise

By Daniel Francis

For the past few years, I have been trained as a Leadership Development Coach. I was blessed to have parents who started a company together, where they train mainly corporate clients on how to develop their leadership traits and become better leaders. My parents trained me to facilitate the programmes.

The first programme I learned to facilitate focused on Personal Leadership which emphasises that when you better yourself, it is easier for you to be a better leader.

Many different exercises help participants identify and address their leadership deficiencies during the programme but, for some reason, one in particular has come to me.

It is called the ‘Time Picture Exercise,’ and it is one of my favourite exercises. The exercise calls for participants to take note of how they spend each 15-minute or 30-minute block at work for a week. This is a difficult task to complete but it is worth it every time.

For the participants that complete the exercise, they get a snapshot of how they spend their time. Most are surprised to see how much time they spend on time-wasting activities like scrolling through social media, attending to tasks that are not under their job description, etc.

This snapshot makes it clear where they are falling short, what activities they need to do less of, and where they should prioritise their time more.

In the recent cohort of participants that I had, something occurred to me while they were doing this exercise. What if the parameters of the exercise were changed?

Instead of plugging in the activities that are done at work, what if we plugged in when we do good and when we sin? Creating a sin log of sorts.

I took it a step further and decided to try this exercise myself. With no idea what the results would be and what it would reveal to me, I tried it. I decided to walk with a pocket notebook that week and every time I did something good, I documented it and every time I sinned, I documented it. The results at the end of the week were astonishing.

When I looked at my week, I was very ashamed by how often I sinned. When you take the time to log your sins you may be surprised by the frequency of your sins. Not only that, but I also noted how often I indulged in the same sin. It showed me that certain sins had power over me.

The good that I did was interspersed throughout my day, but it was alarming how much more sin there was compared to good deeds. From the little white lies to the impure thoughts, the handful of sins here and there would accumulate over the days.

With a bright light shining on my deficiencies similar to the Time Picture Exercise, I saw clearly what I needed to focus on to be better.

The power of having a snapshot of your routine can put you on notice. We oftentimes operate in a default mode. This setting is our norm, and we don’t much think about our actions. We just move along to the regular flow of our days not realising that we are also being caught up in the current of sin.

I urge anyone who wants to see a significant change in their behaviour to do this exercise. It will open your eyes to how you currently operate and help highlight the areas that you need to work on to be a better, holier person.

God has given you a process to work on yourself in a way that will help bring you closer to Him. It may take a bit of doing but another byproduct of this exercise is that you will think twice before you sin as you are now more alert to what you are doing.

It’s a win-win with the result being a better you.

Give the Sin Log Exercise a try this week.

Daniel Francis is a millennial helping other millennials. He is a two-time author of the books The Millennial Mind and The Millennial Experience, and an entrepreneur. Over the past four years, he has served as a Personal Development Coach whose work targets Millennials and helps them tap into their full potential. He is also a self-publishing coach and has guided hundreds on self-publishing their book successfully.

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