Your Packed Schedule

You are a busy person. That just seems to be the way it is in the culture we’re living and breathing in. I’ll even bet you’re busier than you even realize, and that your job creeps into parts of your day that used to be sacred. We have email, meetings, email, packed work schedules, email, kids’ schedules, email, and then you have to try to figure out when to work out, do your hobbies, or just get away for a breather. This, my friends, is all too much.

As I’ve tried to diagnose the problem more clearly, I realized that it comes down to how easy it is for people to have direct access to you at all times. The barrier to entry is just so low. It used to be that a person had to wait until you were near a phone (the kind that was attached to the wall with a cord), write you a letter, or find a way to see you face-to-face in order to gain your attention.

Now, all it takes is a text, a tweet, Slack, an email, or a Facebook message, and you’re working on a project that you had no clue you’d be working on. Time to say goodbye to the carefully planned day that you thought you’d have.

Being unreachable is a thing of the past. Welcome to a day when anyone and everyone can put tasks on your to-do list from anywhere in the world, at any time of day, at the press of a “send” button.

It’s All Too Much

Admit it. It is all too much. And now that you’ve admitted it, you have to decide what you’re going to do about it. My suggestion? Learn to say “no” or “not yet” to others, and create spans of time where you are not accessible, times when you can put your head down and crank away at the important tasks at hand.

I know that it’s tough to say “no” or “not yet” to others, but learning how to prioritize what you need to do is an important tool to develop in today’s busy culture. It’s easy to get wrapped up in not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings at the expense of the important work you really need to accomplish.

When I do less-pressing work during daylight hours, my family reaps the consequences of me trying to keep up during the evening hours.

How can you navigate all of this better?

• Create generic email drafts ahead of time. When the time for saying no arises, simply drop the drafted text into your email. Don’t write it out of emotion. When we spew out an emotional response, we usually have to follow it up with an apology and the situation is clouded with angst. Keep this message simple with something like:
  • “Hey, thank you for wanting to meet face to face; I appreciate it so much. Could we continue this conversation via email, though? I may be able to address your concerns more quickly.”
  • “Thank you for your request. While I won’t be able to get to this today, I’ll put this on my to-do list and get back with you by the end of the week.”
• Say no to meetings you know you’re just going to hand off anyway. Make the connection without doing the transitional meeting. I’ve been so bad about this, but it’s okay to do this, because you’re saving time for everyone involved. Saying, “I may not be the best person to ask. Let me connect you with someone who can better help with this,” shows that you’ve given the situation some thought and are expediting the solution.
• Block out spans of hours where you will close your email app, put your phone on do not disturb, put your headphones in, and crank away on the right work at the right time.
• Straight up, be honest with people. I’m frequently contacted by people about sales, trainings, or partnerships. It’s easy to string a person along in the name of Protecting Their Feelings when you already know it’s not going to happen. Tell a person the truth, even if it’s difficult—they’ll appreciate it more. Remember, the person on the other end of that call or email is probably just as busy as you.
• Have a plan in place that allows you to say yes when you really want to say yes. This includes a plan for saying no when you need to say no. If your schedule is full of the “no” crowd, you’ve filled up the space that would be better used by helping the people you’d like to help. We all know this, but time is limited. You only have a finite amount of it. I love my family too much to fill my nights and weekends by saying yes to more unnecessary work and no to having fun with my wife and kids.

Time to Take Action

Where do you need to say “no” or “not yet” more frequently? How will you build in uninterrupted times to get the right things done?

Have questions? Email or tweet at me and I’ll do my best to help you get focused on doing the right work at the right time.

I’ve elevated my study of the Bible over the last few years, but my prayer life is a place I have room to grow. The Renewing Your Mind Podcast had a great teaching by the late great R.C. Sproul today unpacking the impact of Luther on his prayer life.

I’ve been in pastoral ministry for over 20 years and have not heard the story of Luther’s barber asking him how to pray. Yes, Luther’s master barber that the whole town called Master Peter. The little book that Luther wrote him is so good and I’m going to work Luther’s plan into my prayer time. It’s gold.

Download A Simple Way to Pray (For Master Peter the Barber), it’s a quick read that could impact your whole life. Additionally, hit the title of the post above as it’s a link to the podcast episode from Renewing Your Mind.

★★★★★

I didn’t know what I was getting into, I went into this read totally blind. I googled “top books of 2017” because I figured my library would have plenty of copies to read. I was right and I wasn’t disappointed one bit.

This is what you get when you cross an old fairytale set in modern times with a touch of horror, written by a man who is a real poet. That’s some mashup.

The first third of the book I was all in. The rest of the book was exciting enough to trade sleep for the conclusion.

I wish I could tell you more, but going in blind is the way to do it. Here’s all I’ll give you before you go and buy it, or check it out, like I did.

When Apollo Kagwa’s father disappeared, all he left his son were strange recurring dreams and a box of books stamped with the word IMPROBABILIA. Now Apollo is a father himself—and as he and his wife, Emma, are settling into their new lives as parents, exhaustion and anxiety start to take their toll. Apollo’s old dreams return and Emma begins acting odd. Irritable and disconnected from their new baby boy, at first Emma seems to be exhibiting signs of postpartum depression, but it quickly becomes clear that her troubles go even deeper. Before Apollo can do anything to help, Emma commits a horrific act—beyond any parent’s comprehension—and vanishes, seemingly into thin air.

The Changeling on Amazon

This is me, I’m old. This is my family, we’re still kinda new as Stella is only eight. This is my first post on a new space I’ve carved out on an old, by modern tech standards, blogging platform.

I have an old itch that needs to be scratched and that’s putting new content out. Now, this new content won’t be great, let’s just get that out there now. It will, however, be moderately interesting if you like photography, theology, productivity, sports (Texas Rangers, Dallas Cowboys, Seattle Seahawks, OKC Dodgers), and my family.

Documenting my life and thoughts has actually been a thing for a while, but I always reset. It’s time for that reset, but let’s take a look at the past iterations.

• Scroll back in time on this site, it’ll take you as far back as 2014.
• My original Tumblr - Goes back to 2007 and encapsulates some good and bad times in the life of a blogger and a lot of photos from my art show days. The further you go back in time the stupider it gets.
• The ProjectOKC Blog - Chronicles the rise and fall of a non-profit I ran from 2009-2011. A social network for good. Theology was all over the place as I transitioned out of a church job and into the non-profit world.

Spending the evening looking over these old posts has been fun for me, not as fun for you, but it’s time for me to move forward and start something new. Maybe it can be fun for all of us from time to time.