SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

Focus is key in getting things done. Be diligent at what you're good at and see what happens. Let other things go, unimportant things.
Distraction is the enemy of focus. Planning becomes procrastination and procrastination is the enemy of action.
What distracts us?

Distraction #1: Prep Work

Before I can write or exercise or go here or fix that, I need to... get my gear, do my research, find my tools, what-have-you.
Solution: set aside a designated prep time. Take 5 minutes and list what needs to be done to get ready, then do it as quickly as possible. Set a time limit and don't go over it.
And, once you're prepared, note what that looks like and change your habits a bit so you now keep all your gear in one accessible place.

Distraction #2: Opportunities

We love opportunity in America. It feels anti-American to hear opportunity knocking and not answer the door. I am telling you right now it's okay. Lock the door. Deadbolt it, turn off the lights, and hide under the kitchen table so Opportunity thinks you're not home.
We're blessed because we live in a world where anything is possible. With endless possibility though is endless distraction. If you don't focus on a few possibilities, then none of them will become reality.
Solution: Make a list (big) of your top goals, your priorities, your Absolute Yes list. Tape it up. Compare every single opportunity to it, and only consider the ones that get you closer to your goals.

Distraction #3: Details

Details matter, but there's a time to focus on them and a time to pretend they don't exist. As a writer, I can easily slip into detail-edit mode while I'm writing. I break my flow, my concentration, by nitpicking over a word choice. I have to make myself focus on the writing and ignore the "detail" monitor in my head. Once I get a piece written, it's time to go to edit mode.
If you're organizing your house, teaching your kids, or writing a book, you deal with the same tendency. You have to fight that perfectionist tendency (need matching containers and a labeler, need new crayons and stickers and better curriculum) in order to get the job done.
Solution: Break projects and steps toward your goal into two parts: 1) get it done and 2) fix the details. Set a time limit to complete the first part: get it done. Then, if you have time left over and you still really want to, you can go back and fix the details. Often I find that my attention to detail was really just a way of procrastinating. I might be overwhelmed or tired, and I'm looking for a way to avoid the work altogether. Quit letting yourself make excuses, set a short time limit, focus, and do all you can. Then quit!

Distraction #4: Side Issues

Rabbit trails tend to lead us on interesting journeys but at the end, we end up lost. "Where am I? Why am I here? What am I doing?" You know that dazed feeling? It comes from this common problem: letting a related side issue pull you so far off course you can't remember where you started.
I'm sweeping the kitchen when I find a toy on the floor, so I leave the broom and take it to the toy box, when I notice the toys are all mixed in a jumble and I've been meaning to sort them so I start sorting them, find a pencil, leave the toys to go put the pencil away, notice the dining room table looks awful, get out a new tablecloth, start looking for candles for the centerpiece, wander out, trip over the broom and wonder what it's doing there.
Ehhhh. Nobody wants a day like that, but we let it happen to ourselves all the time.
Solution: Keep a notebook handy, or a list on the fridge; keep a small basket handy too. When you're working, drop the random out-of-place stuff in the basket. Jot notes on the notepad to remind you of stuff to do later. Deal with it later, after you've finished your current task.

Another solution: Get in the habit of checking off each task as you complete it. This means you'll want to write it down first, of course, and if you're not already using a planner or list of some sort, you should because it will take a load off your brain. Finish a task, check it off. This reminds you to stick to it, gives you that little high from getting to mark it done, and shows you what's next on the list. It's a win-win-er...win situation.
Online solution: Since the Internet is basically just email with 10 trillion side issues attached, a click away, this is a big problem for, well, anyone who checks email. A few ideas for solving this:

• use a reader for your blog subscriptions (thus yr not distracted by the cute sidebar ads and buttons)
• use an email client which downloads your emails into a desktop interface
• keep a note of 'want to check out later' either on yr computer, in an email draft, or on a real piece of paper. have some designated 'computer free time' to check that stuff out later.
• have 'focused computer time' and free computer time. and OFF-SCREEN time. Too. Lots of it.
• employ the 5-second rule. you click, you're at a new site, you've got 5 seconds. Is it worth your time or not? There's so much good stuff that you don't need to waste time on the mediocre. If it's not great, let it go. Close the tab. If it is great, add it to your reader, book mark it, put it on your list.

The end.

Freedom from distraction is freedom to focus.

Freedom to focus is freedom to accomplish.

All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. (1 Corinthians 10.23)

This post is part of Steady Mom's 30-Minute Blogging Challenge.

This post is part of the 30-Minute Blogging Challenge at Steady Mom.

I just started a pot of coffee brewing, and since my coffee maker needs to be cleaned out yet again (darn hard water) and takes about 30 minutes to brew a pot, that's my automatic timer. I'm taking this 30-minute posting challenge because I have that feeling, the one of a pesky little guilt peering over my shoulder, whispering in my ear, "You're on the computer agaaaain?" It's hard to hear the whisper sometimes because of the kids hollering in the background... Read the rest of this entry »

I Always Feel Like I Am Compromising

If I focus on writing, working, I feel the lack (dreadfully) in what I am as a mother.
If I focus on being Mommy, making a home, I feel something in my soul begin to scream. Too long at that, it grows silent and still. Too still. In-the-throes-of-death silent (though, now that I think of it, "throes" don't seem that silent).

Joe comes home and asks, "How was your day?" and I laugh a crazy little laugh of desperation and answer: "Oh, great, you know, changing diapers, doing laundry, the usual. Yours?"
And I have nothing else to say.

Average or Exceptional

I listened to a podcast yesterday and in it this is what caught me, this small instruction: Read the rest of this entry »

5:00 on a December evening;

it's dark outside, but all ten of us are indoors, getting dinner ready, dodging children at play, checking email, drinking coffee, talking, laughing, being quiet, being together.

I sit down to nurse my youngest; next to me, my sister is burping baby Carson, the newest member at only 7 weeks old. The other four kids are scattered around the house. Baby Einstein is on but nobody's watching. The kitchen smells good, like gooey butter cookies and sausage balls.

My Mom would love this.

Family gatherings were her forte. She lived for these moments, loved them, loved us all being home, loved the slightly controlled chaos that followed, loved her grandchildren.

She knew my sister's two oldest and my firstborn; I was pregnant with my second when Mom died in the summer of 2007. Before the cancer made her too sick to leave the house, she bought a blue baby blanket, confident that I was having a boy.

Read the rest of this entry »

I took a walk this morning, and was so proud for making myself get up and go around the block. In that glow of self-satisfaction (how little it takes for me to get there...), I stepped around the corner and saw our house, our yard, our patio, our garage, our overgrown garden area, our junk, our toys, our mess. The glow turned gray. I walked around and around, I tried to make a plan for making it all disappear.

Pride wants to make a presentation.

I don't like the clutter. I don't like the junk. I don't like the mess and the weeds and the lack and I don't want to be represented by it.
But you know what?

Read the rest of this entry »

"You're not well-rounded unless you're bipolar." -Joe

There are many tangled messes that other people are in, from which I would like to extricate them. (Mainly because I enjoy using the word extricate.) I know, however, that if the same habits, thought-patterns, etc., remain, there will soon be another mess just like (or worse than) the first.

I do no one a favor by fixing a problem that isn't mine, not to mention that I usually can't fix it in the first place.

But I really like to worry. And I really, really like to worry about other people's problems.

It's so easy, so habitual for me to pick up worry and carry it around. It's kind of like a security blanket. Big, comforting, and gets in the way. Slows me down. I'm always dragging it in the dirt and ending up with a whole trail of mud and dead leaves behind me... Read the rest of this entry »

The Lord takes pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.

Commit to your own success.

Shoot for the highest possible goal.

Take yourself seriously.

Get rid of the physical irritations: do it.
Face the fear of success: overcome it.

Let go of things that don't belong to you.

Be enthusiastic! Overzealous! Passionate! Annoying! Go for it!
You're not just like everybody else.

You're not a cynic; you're a dreamer.

Dream without reservation.
Write without hearing the critic's voice.
Act without questioning your ability.
Be true and real and honest.
If it isn't working, kill it.

Start over. Commit.

Dream. Speak your dreams.
Believe. Reach. Don't stop.
Failure is not inevitable. Obstacles are part of the process.

With diligence, success IS inevitable.

Image courtesy of Shoes on Wire.

Prayer of the Liberated Woman

Deliver me from stress and worry and fear. I'm ready to let go. I don't want to be in charge. I want to do the work that is mine and let go of what belongs to everyone else.

Deliver me from poverty and famine into Your provision and abundance. The burden of financial responsibility is too much for me. The burden of perfect economic decisions is too much for me. The burden of knowledge, responsibility for things out of my control is wearing me down. Take it. Tie my hands before I try to take it back.

Deliver me from the silence and solitude I create, from this striving after independence, from this pride and isolation. Bring me into the right place of dependence on You and on my husband, and my friends, and my family. Open my mouth to speak. Open my heart to be vulnerable, honest, childlike, trusting, resting. Help my mind to believe, rest, to see what is, to be undeceived.

Deliver me from the trap of trying to supply everything for everyone. I am not the source. I am fresh out of everything. I swing back and forth, hitting self-pity on one side and uncontrollable anger on the other. I resent the freedom I think other people I have. Free me from the myth of balance and perfection. Help me to accept my own limits.

Deliver me from pride. I'm tired of having no one to look up to or lean on because I've put myself on a pedestal. I declare to the world that I am not enough. I am ready to say the things I try not to say: I can't, I won't, not now, not today, not ever. I'm done. I need a break. I'm not superwoman today. I'm not the source. I don't have the information. I can't help you. I don't know.

Deliver me from my own stupidity. I say I want simplicity and independence, but really I just get hurt when no one calls, no one comes. I say I want to be self-sufficient and capable, but really I want to be a little more high-maintenance, a little more pampered, a lot better at asking for and receiving help, a lot more honest.

Deliver me from trying to give what I do not have.

Deliver me from not knowing how to change.

Deliver me from the habits that keep me defensive, scared, and lonely.

Deliver me from a liberation that only enslaves me to the ideals and expectations of others.

Give me true freedom.

Anytime in my heart there is that clenched fist, something is wrong. I have to let go, let go, let go. Fear is the basis for so much controlling, wandering, wishing, grabbing, missing. It blinds me. I let it. I submit to fear.
Let go, let go, let go. Breathe. Accept. Reality is not perfect and we long for perfection. Our whole life can be wasted, trying in a frantic scramble to get things perfect here... Or we can accept with grace the reality we have. The world is warped with sin, with our own efforts to eradicate sin. "...all is seared with trade, bleared, smeared with toil/ and wears man's smudge and shares man's smell..." (Hopkins).

We - I - I am not perfect. The imperfect cannot make the perfect. The finite cannot fashion the infinite. We are caught in our own fallen selves, trapped souls who instinctively know and crave the divine, the whole, the beautiful but wearing these clay shells, this flesh which hinders us at every step. We see the visions of glory, we try to run, stumble on our own feet. Our own awkwardness, incompetence, fear, limitation, weakness...

We sit and cry and cry, children outside the store window, penniless and snot-smeared and hopeless. Our own dreams begin to taste bitter. We kick the dust, shake our fists, scream out why, and feel the pain of longing turn into something else as we lose hope.
The sickness spreads.
Our shoulders harden into a permanent shrug.
"I don't care."
Our faces raise in a permanent sneer.
"That's so stupid."

Sometimes the words sound refined, polished, so mature that everyone is fooled. Almost.
"I'm focusing on my career right now..."
"That lifestyle really isn't for me..."
"Oh, yes, I'm very happy..."
"I've just decided to go with something different..."
"Well I was so immature back in college, I see things differently now..."
"We decided it was best to break off the engagement..."
"Sure, it's very fulfilling, there are a lot of options at this company..."
"Oh, I'm just focusing on my kids right now..."
"Oh, I'm just focusing on my job right now..."
"Oh, I'm just focusing on my education right now..."

Those are our grown-up voices, telling the world our triumph: we have figured it out. Hope is a folly, perfection a silly dream, life a disappointment. We have settled into mediocre. We are resigned. We are all grown-up now, see? You can trust us. We get it.

It's the half-truths that get us, eat us from the inside out. Complete truth nourishes, feeds and grows our souls. Those half-truths drink us dry.

We quit looking in the store window. We decide it is a myth; we turn our back on the fancies that captured our attention for the moment, we face the filthy street in front, we sneer at the child still captivated by the illusions of the impossible. We turn our backs and don't see that hanging over our heads in that store window is a sign we never read:
All merchandise free. Inquire within.