to-do ... to-don'ts . . .

I'll wrap this up today, with a list (what else?) of some practical do's and don'ts of keeping a to-do list.

First, do be practical. Don't fill your list with impossible tasks. It's self-defeating.

Next, do remember there is no Do-To List Police Force. Really. They don't exist -- never have. So don't try and deputize yourself onto the force! Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies!

Do take a large, cumbersome task and break it into parts, giving each part a separate line on the list. Don't worry, necessarily, about keeping it all on one day, either.

Do feel free to delegate the things on your list to others. And when someone completes one of your items, don't forget to cross it off! Why not?

If you do overload your list into an impossible day, don't sweat taking some tasks off your list. Remember, this list is a tool to benefit you. Loading it down with impossibilities is counter-productive. Plus, you'll find you won't stick to list-making for long.

Do give it a try . . . you don't have anything to lose!

:)

to-do: the benefits (finally) . . .

Isn't it amazing how a little blogger glitch can completely set you back? Having that blog post disappear into outer space ... ugh!

So, can I make a confession? I've not made a to-do list for the past two days. *GASP* I know, right? It's one of the reasons that I haven't finished this series yet -- I didn't have a list to remind me!

That brings me to what I consider to be one of the top to-do list benefits. It helps me have a "big picture" look at my day. (Which is also one of the reasons I suggest making out your list earlier in the day, rather than later.) And it keeps me from forgetting the important things that need to go into my day! It allows me to prioritize and make the most of my time. And nothing falls through the cracks. Now, that's not to say that I can't *choose* to eliminate something from my list--or move it to another day--but that's an entirely different story!

Another benefit? A sense of accomplishment when I look back over my list throughout the day and see what I've crossed off! Especially at the end of the day. It's all too easy to sit down in the evening, look around you and wonder, "What exactly did I do today?" That list lays it out plain and clear - crossed-out-line by crossed-out-line. High five! You go ahead and put your feet up. Anyone can tell just by looking at that list, you earned a break!

Want more? Try this -- it's great to be able to look back over a couple a days, maybe a week, perhaps a whole month! I have to track time for monthly reports. I use my to-do lists to help me keep up with that. I also use it to help me track mileage when I need to keep up with that.

It makes me feel good. Along with that sense of accomplishment, I *don't* flip-flop around in my day like a fish out of water. I have purpose and focus. Gosh, if feeling good was the only benefit, it would be enough, don't you think?

Give it a try, say for two weeks. It takes about two weeks to make it habit forming; and to give you a sense of how great an asset it can be!

One more post and I'll give it rest. Don't worry -- I'll make my list tomorrow -- and finishing up this series will be at the top!

:)

teaching: the titus 2 advantage . . .

Tonight's the night that Todd and I are leading a conference based on Titus 2. We'll have thirty minutes of general group time (during which we are going to do a funny skit), and then Todd will teach the men, and I will teach the ladies.

I've worked, studied, and prayed really hard over the subject and materials, and I'm excited and a little nervous. Two of my favorite resources have been the Women's Evangelical Commentary: NT and Jaye Martin & Terri Stovall's Women Leading Women: The Biblical Model for the Church. Both were instrumental in my preparation. As a reward for all my hard work, Todd gave me the go-ahead to get the Women's Evangelical Commentary: OT, which just released this month. I've been waiting for it for ages!

For my part, I'm covering six advantages (it's not the exhaustive list) of women teaching women in Sunday school (small groups, life groups, whatever your church calls them):

1. It's Scriptural
2. It's a Comfortable Environment
3. It's Relational
4. It's Physiological
5. It's Effective Ministry
6. It's More Fun!

My notes are complete as is my handout -- complete with fill-in-the-blanks! I'll spend the rest of the afternoon in prayer for the whole thing! Yay!!

Tomorrow I'll finish up on to-do list benefits. And then . . .

Who knows?

:)

to-do ... tah-dah!

Note: Writing this post was actually on my to-do list for yesterday. I succeeded in completing it and even crossed it off my list. Unfortunately, in the middle of creating, blogger when down, and when I went to publish, I lost the whole post.

Ugh.

It was a long, beautifully eloquent post extolling the virtues of keeping a daily to-do list. No really, it was!

I didn't copy it. I should have. I don't know that the words will flow again like they did yesterday.

Besides, now I'm not in the mood. I may have to come back to this later.

Lemme see what else [like maybe quilting] is on my list for today . . .

:)

what's all the *to-do* about?!?

In the beginning . . .

Here's the first decision you need to make about what works best for you. Paper? Notepad or Remember the Milk, or a similar app on your phone or computer? Perhaps Google's "Tasks". What about a simple Word document? You might even decide to go the route my hubby did, and use a small day-calendar. Decide where you can most effectively keep your to-do list. And although there's pros and cons for all of them, for me, the paper and pen option works best. I like the ability to think out what I'm going to do as I physically write it out. I sometimes can type without thinking (just scroll back through my blog entries and you'll understand -- LOL!), but writing out the words etches it more firmly in my mind.

If you do decide to go the pen & paper route, let me make some suggestions. Use a notepad that is spiral bound. It's nice to be able to keep up with days past. You have the instant ability to look back over the week, the month, whatever, and see what you've accomplished. Use lined paper. Lines help me stay structured -- or perhaps that's in my head. Go plain or pretty -- sometimes having a pretty little notepad to write in makes it more fun and special. Or is that just something we tell our kids?

Put the date *and* the day at the top of your page. Again, this is nice to be able to look back and see *when* you did what you did. Plus it may help you quickly identify routinely repetitive tasks, etc. Also, if you're like me--an empty-nester who stays home--it helps you keep track of what day it is. A lovely bonus.

The morning is the best time to begin your to-do list, although I'm certainly not suggesting that you plop out of bed and run for your pen & notepad (or whatever) and get cracking on that list. Most mornings I get up, do my quiet time, check my e-mail, make breakfast (and if it's a shift day, Todd's lunch), before I sit down with my cup of coffee and work on my list. But let me tell you a secret . . . I put all those things on my list anyway!

Yep. When I sit down with that second (or third) cup, the first things I'll put on that list are (though not necessarily in this order):

--breakfast
--Bible Study
--make Todd's lunch
--check email/facebook/twitter

And then when I've finished my list, I go back and cross off the completed items. Because this list is NOT just about remembering what I want to accomplish in a day, but about all that I accomplished in a day. Making breakfast, making/packing Todd's lunch, doing my Bible study -- those were all activities in which I invested my precious TIME. They are list-worthy activities, so I put them there. And then I take great pleasure in being able to cross them off!

[Note: I am in no way implying that my quiet/Bible study time is an activity that I do just to "cross it off" my list. I do include it on my list because it's an essential investment in my walk with Jesus, and as such, an integral part of my day. That makes it list-worthy to me!]

While I don't separate my list into different categories (I write down things as I think of them), I *do* sort of mentally categorize my activities into three areas.

1) The routine: making breakfast and lunch, general cleaning (dishes, sweeping, etc.), making the bed, take out trash, etc. You see what I mean. Things that I don't necessarily need to be reminded to do, but that are time-takers, nonetheless.

Let me 'splain why. Let's say these things *don't* go on your list. At ten-thirty in the morning you scan the to-do list you wrote at seven. There's not a single thing crossed off. It's gaining on mid-day, and NOTHING IS CROSSED OFF THE LIST! That can be extremely discouraging, especially if you feel like you've been going non-stop. That's right. You've spent your morning making beds, tossing in a load of laundry, unloading and loading the dishwasher (or, if you're like me, putting away dishes from the dish rack and washing a sink full of breakfast dishes), sweeping floors, making lunches, taking out the trash, carting kids to school . . . WHEW!! Put it on your list. Trust me, it's nice to see written evidence of where the time has gone! To me, the other (and perhaps more important) thing is this: routine task does not equal unimportant task. Adopt that philosophy real quick!

This is also how I'd classify my e-mail/facebook time. Not work-related computer time -- that goes in the next category.

2) The 'have-to's': like the doctor's appointment, or taking a pet to the vet, or your child's piano lesson. Or maybe, like me, you work from home and there are specific work requirements you need to meet in a day. It could even be something like, "make raspberry fluff pie" (which is on my list for today and has not been crossed off yet). I put these on the list because either they are tasks I definitely want/need to finish, or things I can't afford to forget. These items are truly the meat-and-potatoes of your to-do list, although they are not necessarily the bulk of your list.

3) The "potential" items. These are projects or tasks that I know are ahead of me, but I'm not sure I'll be able to fit them in today. Like I said yesterday, my to-do list is not a legalistic, "I can't go to bed until every item is checked," kind of list. It's a tool to benefit me, not an oppressive task master. I have no problem putting, "Clean out closet" on my list, knowing that I may or may not get to it, depending on the scope of items in categories one and two. I sometimes put question marks out beside these tasks, just to keep it clear in my head that they're potentials, not have-to's.

I wish I could sit here and tell you with a straight face that (1) once you've written out your to-do list, that's all you'll have to do in the day, and (2) that nothing ever happens to interfere with the completion of said tasks. I'm realistic enough to know that things crop up during the day that weren't on my list. You know what? I add them. And then I cross them off. If it means I can't get to one of those potentials, oh well. I knew from the get-go it would be that way.

As for the other, sometimes things happen in life that make the list completely insignificant. An emergency or crisis that makes even the most important things on your list seem menial. It happens. You know what? The next day, or the day after that, you can put it on a fresh page.

Okay. Next I'll share benefits of to-do list that will knock your socks off! Ummm, not really. But they are worth a read. Tomorrow. For now, I need to mark this off today's list.

And get busy on that raspberry fluff pie!

:)

time management: the to-do list

Lately I've been thinking a lot about this subject. I taught a 60-minute segment at a woman's conference our church did, many years ago, out of the book, Life Management for Busy Women, by Elizabeth George. I didn't do the section on time management (I did the section on managing your ministry), but the time management section really spoke to me, and here lately, with the job shift, I've been thinking about it a lot. A really lot.

My husband is a list-maker. He's got a wallet sized calendar book, and each day he writes down things he needs to do, cards he needs to send, items he needs to buy, and so on. Some days that list takes up the whole space of the day, some days it's just an item or two. But consistently he makes his list, and as the day goes by, he is faithful to cross things off his list. Sometimes it's everything, sometimes it's not.

I really admire this trait in my husband. For several reasons. One, I think it shows discipline. It takes discipline to daily write down a list of the things you want/need/have to do. Two, it shows competence & responsibility. He's aware of the things he needs to take care of and they are important enough to make note of. Three, he reaps the benefit of accomplishment. He can look back over his day, through his list, and see all that he's done. That's a rewarding feeling!

So now that I'm not working outside our home, I wanted to make sure that my days counted. I get easily distracted and can find myself at the end of the day with a half a dozen or more unfinished projects, in various stages, but NOTHING ACCOMPLISHED. Not only can this be very discouraging, but for me it can sometimes send me into a state of immobility ... that's when I am so surrounded by unfinished (and sometimes not-even-started) projects that need my attention, that I'm paralyzed about what I should do next, and instead, spend the next three days sitting on the couch watching old movies. Can anyone relate? Anyone??!

So I've pulled out the old "to-do" list again, with a re-vamped state-of-mind. Over the next three days I want to share some of my thoughts on how a to-do list should be created, why it can be so beneficial, and how it can truly be a stress-reliever. I want you to understand that the to-do list can work for you, not you for the to-do list. That it's not a legalistic demand and drain on your time, but a tool to help you stay focused, feel a sense of accomplishment, and have more time to do the things you enjoy! Our time is precious; we should make the most of it!

So stay tuned, because tomorrow we're going to discuss . . . in the beginning. Creating a to-do list that works for you!

There. Now I can check this off today's list.

:)

planning themes . . . hmmmmm!

Okay, so I love women's ministry.  I've been involved with women's ministry for as long as I've been a Bible-believing, born-again member of a church.  I have such a heart for women and the challenges they (we) face as children of God living on this here earth . . . it's almost too much for me to be able to vocalize!

 La.  That being said, I've done lots of searching and researching for resources to use in women's ministry wherever I am.  One that I found several years ago is Marnie Swedberg, who is like a mentor's mentor!  She comes up with lots of great ideas and puts them within reach of those who need them.  I've subscribed to her Marnie Minute, and Event Planners Friend and most recently, Eating With Gratitude.  She's a fabulous resource and I'm so grateful for her (and I've told her that, too)!

Right now, she's got this cool contest going on, "Resources Via Marnie".  She's got thirty-two theme planning sets; each set includes things like the overall theme (okay, duh), game ideas, publicity ideas, food, decorating, entertainment -- it's really quite ingenious, and incredibly useful!  The contest involves folks picking their favorite theme set, and blogging about it, which is what this blog entry is about!  :)

So I went through the different sets.  There are a LOT!  And surprisingly, of all the wonderful themes, I was able to pick one that I thought was the most fun.  Surprisingly again, it was not what I would have thought I'd have picked!  Let me 'splain . . .

I love tea parties and quilting and crafting -- so anything with those themes you'd think would be top picks for me right?  There's also music-based themes, and exercise (okay, that one's a "stretch" for me!), and holidays, and eating and so much fun stuff!!  But the one that *really* captured my eye was this one:

"Taking Every Thought Captive"  Help Your Women Learn How To Lasso Those Wild, Wild Thoughts with a Wild West Event!

A Rodeo Theme!!!!!

It looks like *so* much fun!!!  And what a GREAT way to *rope* women into a terrific study/event, with such a *catchy* theme!  Rodeo just sounds like an exciting time -- and having everyone come dressed to fill the part makes it relaxed and easy to feel comfortable.  Super idea! 

Anyway, that's the one that gets my vote.  Take a swing by there and check it out.  And check Marnie out while you're at it!  You'll be blessed, that's for sure!

Get along, little doggies!

:)