Tag Archives: time management

Attacking Your Day

  By Rebecca | October 27, 2013 - 2:01 pm |
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I recently read the book,” Attack Your Day! Before it Attacks You!” The main thing I took away from the book was the idea of managing my TASKS instead of my time.  Just because someone comes along and asks something of me doesn’t necessarily mean I must stop right that moment and complete the interrupting task.  It’s my responsibility to prioritize my tasks.

SOOOooooo much easier said than done.  My knee-jerk reaction was “Well, you’ve never spent a day at my desk!  I’m the first face anyone sees when they pass our office, and there are 63 people between the ages of 80 and 100 who all think I’m at their personal beck and call, not to mention all of their responsible parties who need questions answered or need to tell me about a doctor’s appointment.  Before and after and during work, I mother three children.  Three children with no less than 5 years between their ages, all needing different things simultaneously.  Mommy! Mom! Mama!  Hey Mom!  I have a husband and a boss (not the same person) and somehow I’d LIKE to think I try to write stuff and help people.  NO way I can just call the shots on what I want to do.”  It seems that most of my life is basically one interruption after another, putting out one fire after another.  Even while typing this, I’m typing around a pair of three-year-old hands as they stick stickers on my laptop.

So basically, my first thought was “Nice idea.  Totally impossible for me.”  Then I remembered… (start playing Battle Hymn of the Republic background music) I remembered that it’s still the United States of America, the land of the free.  I’m still of legal adult-decision-making age.  This means I AM in charge of what I do.  I make the choice to allow myself to be interrupted, to allow myself to forget the tasks I’ve decided are most important and do the stuff other people present to me as “emergencies.”
I admit, I wonder if deflecting all of the interruptions that come my way would take more time than just doing the task right then and getting it overwith.  A legitimate concern, except if I keep on simply stopping and doing every single interruption, I’ll keep on being unable to get past all the interruptions and accomplish the things I’ve deemed important.

This idea applies to all of life.  Churches, jobs, friends, social organizations, and more are all lining up for a piece of us.  Saying “yes” to them all creates a constant stream of interruptions and interruptions to the interruptions.  (Dizzy yet?  Me too.)

I’ve decided it’s important to homeschool my kids.  I’ve also decided since we still need to feed them, that I can’t quit my job.  Oh yes, and I also want to make a healthy happy marriage, do life with my friends, and make a difference in the world.  This means I HAVE to be a master at managing my tasks.  This life isn’t going to just “happen to me.”  I have to keep my priorities in the forefront of my mind and I have to make these things happen.  I have to be on the attack.

So what do I do?  Here are some ideas:

1)  I need to know what is important to me today.  There’s no way I can order my tasks if I don’t know what I want and need to be doing.  This means I’ve gotta spend a few minutes planning, thinking, and prioritizing.  This could be a simple “to do list” or a calendar program or whatever.  Anything that helps identify what exactly I plan to do and need to do puts me in a better position to be in control of my tasks.

2)  Learn to say NO already!!  Sheesh!!  There are some things absolutely required of me because of my job or position in the family, some things to which I can’t simply say “no.” BUT there are a LOT of things not absolutely required.  A lot more than I want to admit.  For me, saying “no” is uncomfortable, it’s weird, it’s unfriendly… I hate doing it.  But, I can’t say yes to the important things if I can’t say no to the unimportant. 

3) Strategize.  I don’t often think about having a strategy.  I prefer to dance around and float through life while everything seems to fall into place.  Nice idea but not effective goal achieving material.  I need to use strategy.  I don’t think great marriages and good parenting just happen.  There’s a strategy there, or at least a set of core beliefs that are applied by the partners or parents.  I wonder what the simple step of identifying what I want and actually creating a strategy to achieve what I want, would do?  This may seem silly to a business-minded organizer, but to a people-pleasing social butterfly it’s groundbreaking. There’s also a level of commitment in making a plan.  It’s one thing to say I want to homeschool my children.  It’s another entirely to make a strategy figuring out how to do it.  Strategy in place, my excuses are few, aren’ t they?

My life is a juggling act.  THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT.  I’m overly, wonderfully, incredibly, undeservedly blessed with more than my share of loveliness.  Attacking my day means I get to dive in with gusto and enjoy fully the huge pile of good things in my life.  Handsome husband, wonderful children, great job, dreams of good things to strive toward.  All mine to attack at will.

Ready.  Set.  GO!!

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Reason #7 Why I Can’t Say NO

  By Rebecca | October 5, 2011 - 3:48 pm |
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Reason #7 Why I Can’t Say No:  I’ve been so abundantly blessed.

Seriously.  I’m so blessed it’s embarrassing.  Sometimes I feel horrible saying “no” to a request, especially when it’s a “good cause,” because I know I’m so fortunate and I feel bad not pitching in for someone else.  So I say “yes,” feeling guilty for having been blessed beyond what I deserve.

Here’s the problem with that:  it’s based on guilt!  UGH!  Guilt, guilt, guilt!  Seems like so much of my reasoning is based on those horrible feelings of guilt.  Clearly not the way a God of such grace intended for me to live.

But then something happened.

Last weekend I said “yes” to something I didn’t really have time for on paper, but still felt I should do.  Origins is providing a night of care each week to a friend of ours who is an incomplete quadripilegic due to an accident.  We do this so his wife can get one full night’s sleep a week.  I signed up to take a turn and last weekend was mine.  Each time I discussed what I was doing with someone in the group, they raised a suspicious eyebrow and said something like “Are you sure?” or “How will you handle that and take care of the kids?”

I put my family to bed and then made the trip across Lake Ponchartrain to help some acquaintances who, that night, became my friends.  Dwayne had to work early the next day, so Mackenzie, my oldest, pitched in on babysitting duty for an hour or so until I returned home the next morning.  (So really our whole family pitched in to make this happen)  Losing sleep wasn’t a problem since my little one still doesn’t sleep all night and my body is well-acquainted with getting up every few hours during the night.  I dozed in between my every-other-hour cell phone alarms, when I would get up and turn my friend from side to side to avoid bedsores, help with changing bedding, bathroom needs, whatever issues came up.  As I dozed on the couch and my cell would vibrate telling me it’s time to wake up and turn my friend, my eyes would open and invariably fall on a beautiful bronze sculpture by the door.  It’s an artist’s rendering of Lazarus, standing triumphantly, arm overhead as he unravels his grave clothes.  (See John chapter 11 for the whole story)  I thought of Jesus and the many things He did on behalf of others when He walked the Earth.  Nothing like one of Jesus’ most famous miracles right in my face all night to get my mind thinking about the things He did and my reasons for doing the things I do.

I thought, as I completed the very personal, potentially embarrassing tasks for my friend, of Jesus’ words in John 13:

 12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

I had said “yes” to this act of servanthood, not out of guilt this time, but because it is clearly, truly, one of those things that I KNOW Jesus would do.  I love Him, and I want to be like Him, and performing an act of servanthood for another person that night, I knew I WAS being like Him.  THAT’s a whole lot better reason than just “I feel guilty having so much so I’ll agree to do something for someone else.”  Whadya know?  Maybe I got it right, for once?

I have to say, it feels great to have said “yes” to something for the RIGHT reason.  Why don’t I do that all the time?  Why even allow my feelings of guilt into the equation?  Why not simply ask God if this is what He would have me to do, and then proceed according to His instructions?  Doing something as an act of love for Christ and my fellow-man sure created a different feeling than doing something out of a bad feeling of guilt.

Lesson learned:  When I say “yes” for the right reason, it ADDS to my bond with Christ and my bond with those whom I serve.  When I say “yes” for the wrong reason, I notice that the activity normally yields little to no growth in my spiritual life or in my relationship with those receiving services from me.  This alone is reason enough to make SURE my yeses and no’s are based on healthy rationale.

Perhaps with this, Reason #7 Why I Can’t Say NO, and my last entry in the series, I’ve come across a formula or system for checking myself when I’m faced with an opportunity to say “yes” or “no” to a task, commitment, or request.  The activity should be something I can do out of love for God and others.  It should bring me closer to Him and to them.  This is a simple check but it applies in all situations, to all requests whether church, family, work, or socially related, and it rules out unhealthy reasonings such as guilt.  Interestingly, my answer about when to say no, came through a time I said “yes!”

Hope this series has helped someone out there.  It sure has made a difference for me.  So what next?

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Reason #3 Why I Can’t Say No

  By Rebecca | September 26, 2011 - 11:31 am |
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Reason #3 Why I Can’t Say No: I want people to like me.

I’m blushing just now after typing that.  It’s embarrassing to admit.  First of all, I have been abundantly blessed, as in ridiculously lavished, flooded, showered with friends.  My enemies are few.  Very few.  As in I can count them on one hand… and even some of those I still haven’t given completely over to enemy status.  It’s insane for someone with as many dear friends as I to worry or wonder about being liked.  If I never make another friend, I will most definitely, assuredly have been well-liked in my life already.  But still… it’s a “thing” with me.

I can’t really put my finger on why I feel this way, but I do.  I worry that if I tell someone “no” they won’t care for me anymore.  I worry that if I say “no” someone may not learn to like me in the first place. 

Seeing it typed out on the screen, put into words for the first time, I’m able to quickly identify one major problem with my logic:

If a person stops liking me because I didn’t or couldn’t DO something for them, then they never liked ME in the first place.  If a person decides my likeability based on my ability to accomplish something they want, then they have only judged my ability to perform a service, not me personally.  What they wouldn’t LIKE would be the fact that they didn’t get the service they wanted.

Let’s think about someone I KNOW likes me.  Let’s say my husband.  I haven’t always done what he wanted, yet he STILL likes ME.  (I know not all husbands are kind that way, but I’m blessed with one who is.)  I’m not afraid that he will stop liking me simply because I couldn’t run that extra errand or didn’t make it to that appointment.  What about… say, my sister.  Being close in age, as adults we’re close in heart too.  She likes me.  And hasn’t stopped liking me even though I did the unthinkable and moved 770 miles away from her.  My heart-friend Christy.  I’ve dropped the ball on her more than once.  Guess what?  STILL likes me.

So, what’s the deal?  Clearly I’ve nothing to fear as far as not being liked as a person if I need to say “no” to a request from someone.  What’s underneath the crazy idea that they won’t like me if I deny the request?  Is it something a little more like me not liking myself?  Is it something like me having an insatiable need for approval?  Yep.  I’m pretty sure that’s it.  Only there is a difference in being liked ,loved, and approved of for WHO I AM, and being liked, loved, and approved of for WHAT I DO.

Think about Mary Lou Retton, Olympic gold medal winning gymnast.  Nearly every American girl of my age can picture her face, see her with her hands in the air, back arched as she completes another perfect landing after doing something like a hundred flips in the air.  She looks triumphant, cute, likeable even.  However, I know nothing of MLR personally, only of her cute appearance and awesome accomplishments.  I know I like what she’s DONE, but I’ve never had the chance to find out if I’ll like HER, because I don’t know HER, only what she does. (Even though if I had to venture a guess I think I would like her.  She just seems like fun.)

This brings me to a final conclusion:  People have to know ME in order to know if they like  me or not.  What I do or don’t do for them is a separate issue.  Whether they understand that or not is completely outside of my control.  However, my running around trying to make other people like me because of what I do for them could be a potential cause of damage to my relationships with those who already DO like me for me, because my constant running and people pleasing leaves me little time to cultivate  those important, personal, like-me-for-the-real-me relationships.  And when it comes down to it, I want to be liked as a PERSON.  I want to be known for who I really am, and loved just the way I am.  And I AM liked and loved just the way I am.  By God, my mama, my daddy, my husband, my kids, my sister, my brother, and so many friends.  I already have what I deeply desire.  Even if it were Jesus only, I have that kind of love already.  SO WHAT AM I SO WORRIED ABOUT????

And yet another bogus reason is put out of its misery.  I’m starting to feel lighter.  How about you?

 

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