Weeknote for 11/24/2024

Holidays

😐

I worked through a big chunk of the Christmas gift label design and then had to switch to updating my Christmas wish list. My family needed the update to start their shopping. My wish list is always a whole research project of its own, but I’ll try to finish that this week and then come back to the labels next week.

Productivity

🙂

My project time expanded when I scheduled it before dinner instead of after. I have a principle that if I want to make sure something gets done, I do it first. Otherwise I lose track of time, and then that first activity crowds out the later ones. Plus I’ve been too tired after dinner to do much of anything. So last week because I was getting nowhere fast on the Christmas labels, I resorted to the project-first approach, and it was so effective it immediately became my new schedule. I’m able to get at least a couple of project hours in each day. A major goal of my productivity system has been to carve out enough project time that I could comfortably fit another round of grad school into my life, and this schedule rearrangement seems like a pivotal piece.

In Notion I added the tasks with rough time frames to my due date timeline. I’m juggling a lot more tasks at work now, and most of them don’t have hard deadlines, but it’s helpful to see how many planned and active tasks I have with near-term soft deadlines. So I added some formulas to calculate those dates, and now my timeline looks appropriately ridiculous. But even a crowded timeline helps me prioritize, and it lets me adjust my expectations on some of the tasks that are waiting. The updated timeline also shows me I have more policies to set. For example, how should I adjust a task that’s “late” according to its soft deadline? And it gives me more food for thought: If these time frames are always changing, is there a better way to think about scheduling work than deadlines?

Health

🙂

I added a few minutes of exercise to my morning routine. My annual physical a few weeks ago reminded me again of the importance of muscle mass as you get older and that I have daily routines that let me pretty easily add activities, so I decided it was time to try a morning workout. I’m starting really small with some push-ups and a plank, which I’ve read is better than sit-ups. I quickly learned that I need rest days even for the little I’m doing, so for now my schedule is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It should be interesting to see what progress looks like, since I expect to be consistent.

Spirituality

🤔

Keith Green’s biography gave me challenging and inspiring food for thought. When I run across intense people like Keith, I always wonder if it’s everyone’s job to be the same kind of prophetic figure. After this book I think the answer is no: (1) Keith’s perpetual evangelism was part of his personality even before he became a Christian. (2) He willingly listened to his older mentors who tempered his approach. And (3) I think the gospel needs all types of delivery, because there are all types of audiences and circumstances. Some will respond to a fiery outburst, while others need more of a warm glow. But it’s good to stay alert to the needs of the moment rather than becoming complacent.

How do we become people who meet the needs of the moment? In the epilogue Melody gave me a new, gardening analogy for the systematic way I try to cultivate my state of mind: “The Creator of the very first garden gave us a list of the fruit he wants in our lives. If we study just a little, we can find out what the fruit of the Spirit is—and know exactly what kind of seeds to plant to get the crop God is looking for. … Now let’s talk about how we need to be living our lives today so we can leave behind the legacy we desire.”