Blog silence…

I’d like to invite you into the stages of recovery from blog silence:

1. Denial: “WHAT silence?!? People LOVE those license plate things!”
2. Anger: “What right do these people have to be mad about no blogging? I just give, give, give, and all I get is a few measly comments in return.”
3. Resignation: “Ok, maybe there’s a problem. I didn’t even post the message I gave on Sunday until Wednesday.”
4. Reality: “Hmmm….maybe I am a little depressed.”

Coming back from Dominica, I realized that I can’t continue life as is. Quality of life in the “normal” needs to improve a bit. The last two weeks have reminded me that is very true. So, I’m doing two things about it, pursuing them with some rigor:

First, I’m gathering (with the permission of the elders) a task force to hammer out what the ideal staffing for Newberg Friends’ pastoral team would look like. My goal is to be completely done by the end of August. Some changes in who does what are necessary.

Second, on the personal front, you may have noticed in the sidebar to the right that I bought and read my first time management book. (That in itself ought to have shown desperate measures have arrived!) “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” (David Allen) was actually extremely helpful. I’m in the process this week of what he calls the “initial clear out” of reorganizing, setting up a new system to keep better track of all the things that need to be done. I don’t have time to blog about all the helpful stuff it brought, but the first couple of chapters really “spoke to my condition”, as George Fox might have said.

His premise is we all have too many things to do, and these “open loops,” these undone things clatter around our head and wear us out. We remember we need to buy a light bulb for the hallway upstairs and build a deck and call so and so and oh yeah finish that one writing project…but we don’t remember them when we can actually DO something about them. We remember them when we’re focused on something else and it adds stress.

Bingo. There’s my life for the last several years. His system is designed to capture all the open loops and capture them in a system we can trust-the to dos won’t get lost…and in fact, they’ll be organized in context based lists of things to do that will help you do the right things at the right times, when you’re able to accomplish them.

As usual, I find I’m not cutting edge. The web is alive with Getting Things Done (GTD) fanatics. I discovered a friend is a fanatic when he just blogged about it. Follow his links for more info than I could possibly give you. And please go have a good day.

P.S. One place we ARE cutting edge is our sound department at church. We’re podcasting our services now. There’s a link to the info on the front page of our webpage.