Dear Lord in Heaven,
I praise your ever present holy name and hold you up as God most high. Jesus you came down to the earth to save me and being God, you became man, died for me and were resurrected. I love you with all my heart and praise you. I am a sinner and have fallen short of your glory in all I do. As far as sinners, I am the worst. Please fill me up with your holy spirit and cleanse me of my anger, my pain, and my sin. Fill me up with you and leave nothing left of me Lord; help me to do your will.
Amen.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
How do you choose which thing to do when you have a choice between priorities?
Throughout life we have commitments big and small. From small chores, to obligations, and promises we have commitments we make to people, organizations, and ourselves. Systems like GTD are great because they help us to gather all of our commitments into a trusted system so we don’t stress over what we have to do, but what about priority? If I have two things on my list with equal priority how do I choose?
Some would say, it doesn’t matter; you pick one, make it your priority, then work on the other. I disagree; just as open loops and uncaptured commitments can take our attention, so can a secondary priority. How do I put all my attention on one item when another one is equally important? Somewhere in my mind it is being worked on and taking my focus. Unless I can remove that other commitment from the equation, full focus will not be available to me. What thinking has to take place before I can fully focus on one of my priorities?
The technique that works for me is creating a project that plans my time. With two or more priorities that hold equal importance to me to the point that one is stealing focus I have to spend time planning how am going to split my time. If I commit to a certain amount of time working on completing next actions that bring me closer to one priority outcome knowing that in a certain amount of time I will stop and work on next actions bringing me to another priority outcome I can focus because I have time committed in a trusted system.
I use the calendar for this. Once I have identified that I am having trouble focusing because of shared priority I take time to plan. I use my available time to split my time between my priorities. Once this schedule is in place I can focus. It is the same premise of GTD as capturing open commitments, I am simply capturing and processing conflicting priority into a trusted system; in the place my blackberry calendar which triggers alarms.
Pay close attention to your focus as you work; if your focus is interrupted in any way as you work towards outcomes, capture that into your system. A note that says “my focus is interrupted on project x” works just fine, this can help you identify ways you can improve your workflow and create projects for setting your time in order to focus your whole mind creating better work.
Some would say, it doesn’t matter; you pick one, make it your priority, then work on the other. I disagree; just as open loops and uncaptured commitments can take our attention, so can a secondary priority. How do I put all my attention on one item when another one is equally important? Somewhere in my mind it is being worked on and taking my focus. Unless I can remove that other commitment from the equation, full focus will not be available to me. What thinking has to take place before I can fully focus on one of my priorities?
The technique that works for me is creating a project that plans my time. With two or more priorities that hold equal importance to me to the point that one is stealing focus I have to spend time planning how am going to split my time. If I commit to a certain amount of time working on completing next actions that bring me closer to one priority outcome knowing that in a certain amount of time I will stop and work on next actions bringing me to another priority outcome I can focus because I have time committed in a trusted system.
I use the calendar for this. Once I have identified that I am having trouble focusing because of shared priority I take time to plan. I use my available time to split my time between my priorities. Once this schedule is in place I can focus. It is the same premise of GTD as capturing open commitments, I am simply capturing and processing conflicting priority into a trusted system; in the place my blackberry calendar which triggers alarms.
Pay close attention to your focus as you work; if your focus is interrupted in any way as you work towards outcomes, capture that into your system. A note that says “my focus is interrupted on project x” works just fine, this can help you identify ways you can improve your workflow and create projects for setting your time in order to focus your whole mind creating better work.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Breath
I am grateful for the power of breath, I am grateful that when I breath in I am breathing in the essence of my very life - how do I know this? If I were to stop breathing I would pass out or die which tells me that I am breathing in life when I breathe in. I am grateful for the life I breathe in. But what about what I breathe out? If I don't breath out I will also die so when I breathe in I breath in life but when I breathe out I take life as well through expelling death. I am grateful for the good that comes into my life through each breath and the bad that goes out when I exhale that same breath, I am grateful that my body can take in the good and expel the bad. Doesn't the Holy Spirit work in a similar way? Through the Holy Spirit I can discern what is bad or sinful in my life. As I pass through life I take everything I experience in which is good but the Holy Spirit is able to help me take in the good from the bad and expel the bad like the air expelled as I breathe.
Dear Lord,
As I breath please remind me that your spirit is within me at all times filtering out the bad from the good and helping me to focus on the good in everything because Father everything you give me is good because not matter how I can take in the experiences that happen on and along my path they are all from you and you are always good. Thank you for all the gifts I have and will receive no matter how I perceive them at the time I have received them.
Amen
Brian Darnell
darnellster@gmail.com
http://12hourhalfday.blogspot.com
Follow me on twitter - http://www.twitter.com/12hourhalfday
Dear Lord,
As I breath please remind me that your spirit is within me at all times filtering out the bad from the good and helping me to focus on the good in everything because Father everything you give me is good because not matter how I can take in the experiences that happen on and along my path they are all from you and you are always good. Thank you for all the gifts I have and will receive no matter how I perceive them at the time I have received them.
Amen
Brian Darnell
darnellster@gmail.com
http://12hourhalfday.blogspot.com
Follow me on twitter - http://www.twitter.com/12hourhalfday
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