A Rhythm of Abundance

Thoughts of the coming fall, pictures of children going to school, schedules and programs getting under way at church… it all has me stirred to ponder once again my rhythm of life.

As a creative type, time management is not an easy topic, but rather an epic journey – an existential exploration. The fact is, this stuff doesn’t come naturally to me. So I can go into default mode, and float away with the wind, or I can take the opposite extreme and pull myself up by my bootstraps. Neither one is effective.

I spent most of my life on the bootstraps approach, and now that I have been set free from that, I am so very tempted to just float away with the wind. J Yet I am learning that it is not middle ground that I’m going for here – it is the abundant life:

A life full of grace and rhythm and freedom and delight.

A life in which I walk with my shepherd, whether I’m in the valley, on the mountaintop, or beside quiet streams.

I have often questioned my shepherd because of where He has taken me, but as I journey farther along, I am realizing that it was never about the scenery. It was always about my traveling companion. He has been with me the whole time. I have often missed out on the richness and joy of that truth, because I was consumed with my locale – distraught by valley, elated by the mountaintop, impatient with the quiet streams.

Now, I sit by a quiet stream and soak it in. I solemnly relinquish control over any valleys to come. I remain anchored as I head for the mountain top. All because I am learning this:

He is WITH ME.

He loves me.

Completely.

He will never forget my needs.

He will never forget my dreams.

There is so much I don’t understand. I cannot grasp the reason behind the suffering and the loss, in my life or the lives of others, and this humbles me. Yet also, I cannot even begin to fathom these ridiculous blessings. The gifts He gives me that I wouldn’t have even been able to figure out how to ask for. Because I am so deeply known and loved by Him that He knows even better than I do what will delight me in the deep and forgotten places of my heart.

God gives good gifts.

This gift-giver is the one who walks with me, who lives in me, who works in me and through me – even when it seems that my world turns upside-down. This is a deep and beautiful mystery that I will never understand. So this is the choice I make – to walk with Him. To reach out and take the hand that reaches for mine. To trust even when it seems dark and despairing. To keep holding on when I want to run ahead. To sink into this reality of just being with Him.

What does this have to do with time management? If you aren’t a creative type, then I have surely confused and irritated you by now (thanks for hanging in there, anyway). For those who are creative types, this will make perfect sense to you…

I can submit myself to order, to the mundane, without losing hope – because my hope lies in the One who holds my hand through the journey. I don’t see how the gap between my current reality and dreams can be crossed. I don’t have to figure it out. I don’t have to give up. I can simply show up and be faithful and participate in the plan He has for me.

And when all seems to be descending into chaos, I don’t have to cling to order. I can cling to the God of order.

The application of this for me, for this weekend, is this:

I am planning to spend time with my husband – enjoying him, and enjoying the sweet freedom and hope that God has abundantly given. Part of that time will include some fun – a date, some time with friends – and part of that time will include the more difficult parts of managing this life and household.

The hardest part? Without a doubt, that would be the  finances. This is the place that tests my living out these truths that I espouse.

So one of my goals for this weekend is this: to look into my husband’s eyes as we talk about bills and budgets and still be filled with hope and abundant love.

Because I believe in a God of abundance.

I believe in a God who will complete His work in me, who will complete His work in my husband.

I believe in a God who completed His work on the cross.

So I endeavor to set my life to that rhythm.

 

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Time Management: It's All About Rhythm

As a creative type, I have (finally!) nailed down three major elements of time management that actually work for me:

1. Routines     2. Projects     3. Rhythm

Routines:
Now, at initial glance, the thought of a routine sounds B-O-R-I-N-G. However, the type of routine that I have discovered that I like and need is the kind I can do without thinking. Anything I can do by muscle memory, or because that's what I always do when I wake up, etc. is very helpful for me. First of all, it means that I'm accomplishing something without having to make decisions or create momentum - and that is a VERY good thing for someone like me. Secondly, it adds structure and stability to my life, which everyone needs. This is especially important for me, because even though I need structure, I am not naturally inclined to create and sustain structure. If I am left to my own meandering creative path, with no structures in place, who knows where I will wander off to! :)

Projects:
Projects work well for me because I can immerse myself in them and become inspired by them. They also work well for me because they have a definite beginning and a definite end. I can only sustain focus on one area for so long before I move on. So if I start something that requires ongoing maintenance that isn't a habitual routine (such as a garden) it will likely be abandoned along the way when something else inspiring comes along. But if I take on a project that is short enough that my momentum can last 3/4 of the way in, and the last 1/4 could be covered by diligence, desire for the satisfaction of completion, and the grace of God....then it is a workable-sized project.

The combination of routines and projects helps me to minimize the necessity of LISTS. Don't get me wrong, I like lists. As long as it is short enough to fit on a post-it note, an index card, or the screen on my Android phone. When it gets longer than that, I may start to feel overwhelmed, guilty, or I may just come down with a case of the "shoulds". The best case scenario is if I condense my "to do" items into projects, so I can just focus on one big thing at a time. Then I can leave the list for miscellaneous stuff like "return library books" and "set up auto-payment for bill" - or my favorite kinds of "to do" items: "email Annette about coffee" and "call Grace" and "text Ariel". :)

Rhythm:
A healthy balance of projects and routine both contribute to the larger aim of having a rhythm of life. In this last season, I have had the freedom to experiment more with a rhythm that works for me - mostly by trial and error. :) As an ENFP, one thing that is particularly essential is taking time to get centered. I am learning that I need to make sure that I get a chunk of time to get centered at the end of the work week, along with smaller times to get centered throughout the week. I'm also learning that for me, most experiences with people require time to process afterward. Maybe they said something confusing or interesting that my brain needs to sort through, or maybe they inspired me on a topic and I need time to reflect on how to incorporate it into my life. Or maybe they are struggling and I need time to entrust that burden to God so it doesn't weigh me down.

Another part of rhythm is knowing I have chunks of time set aside for things like home tasks, sabbath time, and people time so that the need for each of these isn't taking up mental RAM while I'm trying to do something else.

For people who are more practical and productivity-minded, this may seem ridiculously obvious, but for a creative type, here is a revolutionary thought: most things in life require preparation beforehand and clean-up or follow-up tasks afterward. I am trying to learn a "before, during, after" rhythm instead of my old approach of "dive in" followed by "dive in to the next thing".

Update from Time Management: Cell Phones and Emails and Computers, Oh My!
As for the tools I knew were working for me, they still apply. :) I use my netbook a lot and still LOVE Xmind. Only change is that my Blackberry has been replaced by an Evo (at my husband's prompting...dare I say nagging?).

On the other hand, my hopes for getting email under control have been dashed. All systems thus far break down at the "consistent follow through" step. The only solution I have come up with so far is to continue to offer myself grace and hope my friends do, as well. :)

On the plus side, I know of all kinds of tools that will help people who have better follow-through than I. However, I'm not sure those are the people who really need the tools. Hmmm. Catch-22?

If you read my last time management post (in April) you will know that one thing I aim for is that technology would work for me and not against me! A key piece of this is that I want social media to augment and improve my flesh-and-blood relationships, not distract from them or dilute them. This is one I have to keep re-examining. Trolling through facebook's news feed status updates on my phone can be an addictive distraction. However, when I go to a good friend's page or see an update from them, it helps me stay connected to them when it wouldn't otherwise be practical to do so. Enter stage left: Facebook's new Close Friend's List. I'm hoping this will help me keep up with the people I am trying to intentionally do life with, instead of losing track of them while I read about where That-Guy-I-Met-At-Some-Conference-Last-Year went to lunch.



Time Management: Cell phones and emails and computers, oh my!

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Do you ever feel like you need a personal assistant? I'm not talking about thinking, "Wow, that would be luxurious!" - I'm talking about thinking, "Well, I can't afford a personal assistant, so how on earth am I going to survive in this world?"

One thing I am forever trying to figure out is how to get technology to work FOR me and not against me. :) Two major ones are the cell phone and the email. I feel pretty good about my cell phone usage... I stand by the general premise that my cell phone exists for MY convenience, not for the convenience of everyone else. In fact, there are many times that I don't answer my phone, for the basic reason that I don't want to be interrupted from what I'm doing. I also find that it's a lot easier to listen to someone's message and actually be prepared to call them back with an answer to their question (as opposed to completely derailing what I'm working on just so I can say, "Huh, I dunno. I'll have to think about that and get back to you."). Or, if they called just to talk, I can take the time to completely set aside what I'm working on and give them my full attention for a conversation.

Email management, on the other hand, seems to continually plague me. There are several systems that I love, including GTD. I've read tons of stuff online about how to better manage email. The problem is, most of them require consistency on my part. And that is where the system breaks down! :)

I find that when it comes to email, I am my own worst enemy. Who is it that sends me the most emails that I don't know what to do with? ME. As a creative person, I am always finding new ideas and inspirations. And for some reason, I find the need to email myself these ideas, and a link to something oh-so-cool that's related to them. So my Gmail inbox is full of reminders from me, nifty interesting things to read, thoughts about a project I need to work on, amazing tools I found online that are SURE to change my life, and list-serve emails that I somehow managed to sign up for since my last subscription purge.

Last time I sat down to deal with my email problem "once and for all," I ended up using a gmail labs to separate my inbox into a few categories. Unfortunately, managing categories doesn't really work from my blackberry, and that's generally where I deal with my email. So, we will see how this works out now that I finally have a netbook!

My current main categories, partially inspired by GTD, are:

1. Calendar (so that I can sit down with the requests and the calendar and try to make wise decisions)
2. Respond
3. Read (for longer emails that don't require a response, but I don't have time to read now)
4. Pray
5. Action

After a couple months of having these categories, the ones that seem most helpful are calendar, read, and pray. This helps to deal with a few of the emails that I keep reading and then leaving in the inbox, so I don't have to keep going through all them, thinking "why did I leave this here, again?" Also, if I have time to pray or read, it's easy just to pull those up and not get distracted by all the other stuff. I also have a category called Waiting, which I hope will no longer be necessary now that I installed boomerang!

The category I like the least is "Action" (shocking, I know). My major realization last week was that I am very much drained by miscellaneous "to do" lists. However, I am inspired and motivated by projects with a worthwhile purpose. So I think the key will be to get all those details connected to a project! For example, instead of "schedule dentist appointment" and "plan a healthier menu" being on a big long list jumbled in with other random things - perhaps they can both be a part of a project to become more healthy.

Some technology that is actually making my life easier:

• my blackberry
• my netbook (my husband got it for me in an ebay auction!)
• xmind (free mind-mapping program - makes so much more sense to my creative mind than lists do!)

Some technology I am hoping will make my life easier:

• boomerang
• the email game

Next steps toward email sanity:

• figure out how to get "action" emails into projects, probably in xmind
• play the email game more often!
• set aside time to go through each category (listed above) on a regular basis 

Tune in next time to see if any of those steps do any good! LOL

Here's hoping that blogging about my current project, working on my time management, will also help. :)


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Enough

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There are so many things we do and say that really mean, “It’s not enough.”

I’m frustrated and I’m exhausted. My brain quit a while ago and now my motor skills are starting to go. But I keep pushing myself. Why?

It’s not enough.

It’s not enough to do what I have the mental, physical, and emotional energy to do and then trust God with the rest. Because I need more than what God has provided. I need more energy, more time, more money, more accomplishment, more order, more, more, more.

He’s given me 24 hours in each day. And that is a gift – none of it is promised.

Today is enough.

There are so many things that need to be done. I’m not the leader I want to be, the wife I want to be, the homemaker I want to be, the family member I want to be, the person I want to be. But I won’t accomplish it all today. That much doesn’t happen in 24 hours. I am limited. Is that a curse? Or a blessing?

I do look forward to life after death, where I get to spend eternity with God and there are no limitations on that time. But for now, He has given me 24 hours per day. Because He knows I am weak, He knows my frame, He knows I come from dust.

Can I gratefully accept this gift of 24 hours? Can I say, “Thank you, Lord, for this day. It is long enough for all You want to accomplish within this day. Show me what You want me to do today, and help me be grateful for the number of hours in it. Thank you for reminding me when it is time to rest.

Thank You for this gift of time.

It is enough.”

 
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Lessons Along the Journey: Criticism

Lesson #3: Let go of criticism.

I have to stop criticizing. I have to stop the sick, negative cycle I have allowed myself into. I have to stop allowing myself to focus on other people's imperfections - especially in conversations behind their back.

I was listening to a message called "The Power of Words: Death and Life" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

It's a life-changing message - you don't want to miss this one! You could read it, but I definitely recommend clicking "listen" it will give you several options for how you can hear this amazing talk.

An amazing thing has been happening as I let go of criticism. I find myself with a lot more mental space and time to think and pray! Bonus!