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An Unexpected, Modern-Day Twist to The Christmas Carol

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It’s Never Too Late to Build A Better Life

An update of the December 29, 2018 post.

As I’m working on goal setting and planning for the new year, I’ve been reviewing the past several years. Looking back can be disappointing and discouraging if things haven’t gone as well as you had planned. And this year certainly didn’t go as planned

While thinking about places I fell short and opportunities I missed or ignored, it caused me to think about the Hallmark Christmas movie, “A Shoe Addict’s Christmas”. In this movie a woman, Noelle, accidently gets locked in a department store where she works. While waiting to be rescued a quirky woman, Charlie, appears. Over the next few days Charlie, a guardian angel, helps Noelle rediscover the life she has been avoiding, by visiting Christmases past present and future.

We all have situations that we can look back on and wish we had done something different. We can’t change the past, but what we do today will affect the future.

You may have heard the story (or some variation of it) that Charlie told Noelle in the movie. It goes like this, there was man who was out in the snow and someone came by in a sleigh and offered him a ride. The man refused. He said, “God will take care of me”. Later as the snow continued to get deeper another man in a sleigh came by and offered to help. Once again, the man refused. “God will take care of me.” The next time a sleigh came by the snow was up to the man’s chin. For a third time the man declined the help and said, “God will take care of me”. Then the man is in Heaven and asking God why He didn’t save him. God answers, “I sent three sleighs and you ignored them all”.

Too often we ignore the sleighs that God sends us.

As long as we’re still alive, even if we’ve missed or ignored sleighs in the past, it’s never too late to use the next one. It is up to us to decide. There is a balance of faith and doing. Dave Ramsey says to “Pray like it all depends on God but work like it all depends on me.” We need to take of the blinders off and be more observant of the sleighs. “God moves mountains to create the opportunity of His choosing. It is up to you to be ready to move yourself.”, “The Traveler’s Gift”, Andy Andrews.

If I don’t want to get buried in the snow, I need to shovel what I can when I can and take the sleighs when they come along. I was presented some sleighs this past year and took them.

Learn from the past, look to the future, live in the present.

Watch for the sleighs and make this year the best year ever.

There’s Enough Time to Do Everything You Should

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You Can Do Anything You Want, You Just Can’t Do Everything

There are so many things to do and never enough time to do them all. This a common battle. The problem isn’t time it’s the long list of things we’re attempting to do.

We’ve been given enough time to do everything we are supposed to. God built the world and everything in it in six days. We’ve been given those same six days. Granted, building the world is a lot…we just need to remember that we’re not God.

The key is getting clarity about what we are and aren’t supposed to do.

Deciding what things we’re supposed do is the real fight. Especially for people with a servant’s heart. There are so many important and valuable things that need to be done and we want to do them all.

It’s not our responsibility to do everything.

I struggle with knowing what I should do and what to say no to, but I continually improve. My system for planning and scheduling is huge for helping me with this. Over the past six weeks I’ve written about how I schedule and plan what I will do.

  • How to Get Control of Your Life – There’s no simple, one size fits all, magic app for tracking things and budgeting time. You need to find or design a system that works for you.
  • Writing it Down Makes it More Real – It is easy to find ourselves drifting. We need a clear path to a target. When it is written down, I’m more accountable to myself.
  • How I Use Outlook to be Better Organized – Allotting time to things that are on the list gives a time parameter each task will need. It increases the focus for completing them and gives a visual of the progress.
  • Putting the Right Pieces in the Right Places – Even though multi-tasking has been a popular idea; I would argue that we can’t do focused work on more than one thing at a time. Pick one piece and focus on putting it in place.

The real struggle with scheduling and planning is in prioritizing.

This is the tricky part. What is the most important thing I should do and when? The way I’ve been able to determine this is to ask my CEO (God) and board of directors (the people close to me that I trust). If you will ask, you will get clarity. Satan loves keeping us confused.

The more unclear we are about our direction the less we accomplish.

Clarity is a process, not the magic snap of fingers. Opening our mind to the right directions and taking action moves us toward achieving the things that we were put here for. This is not an easy process, but one that’s worth all the effort required.

You have plenty of time to do everything you’re supposed to do. Not everything you want to do. Having a system for planning and scheduling will make the process easier and relieve some of the pressure.

You’ll Never Get the Things You Want Done…Without Being Reminded

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How “Outlook Tasks” Can Help You Accomplish This

Organization can be difficult to achieve. One monkey wrench that regularly gets thrown into the organizational machine is forgetting things. This can be costly when it’s a meeting with a customer or a deadline for a proposal that’s missed.

Too many things bouncing around in our head at one time, makes us more likely to forget things.

Over the past several weeks we’ve discussed the system I use for scheduling my time and organizing my tasks. There were two main focuses.

The reasons for having a system –

The tools I use –

Now we’ll look at the third tool – Outlook Tasks. This is a separate function from the calendar in Outlook. On the surface, using Tasks in Outlook seems redundant to having lists in OneNote.

I shared how I use OneNote for collecting and sharing information. It is great for this. It’s easier to move things around when reviewing and prioritizing lists. Not to mention you can draw, record video, record audio, and a whole lot of other things that you can’t do in Outlook Tasks.

Next was how I used Outlook Calendar to block out and schedule my time. The benefits of a calendar, whether digital or written is allotting time for tasks. One thing written calendars and Tasks in OneNote don’t do is remind you of upcoming appointments and things on the to do list that need done.

Reminders are the game changer.

In Outlook, both calendar events and tasks can have reminders scheduled…there’s some reminders now. As I writing this a reminder alarm sounded and a window popped up on the screen. Now it’s up to me to determine what to do with these reminders.

One is a recurring meeting with myself coming up in 15 minutes (snoozed it until 5 minutes before). Two are action list reminders (snoozed for 15 minutes). Any of these reminders can be snoozed for a specific period of time or dismissed to be rescheduled later.

When I’m in the middle of doing focused work like preparing proposals for construction projects or writing a blog post, etc. It’s easy for me to lose track of time and forget things. Reminders help prevent that.

Outlook Tasks will connect with the other tools in my scheduling system.

All the tools in this system have specific functions that only they serve. At the same time, they all support the other and work together. (There’s the reminder again. Am I going to snooze them again or take a break from writing? I’m going to pause my writing and come back to it. I have another meeting coming up in 30 minutes.)

Here I am, back to writing. I only have a short amount of time to write before I need to go home to watch the Camping World Truck race that’s on this evening. Another thing that’s scheduled on the calendar.

I can set reminders in Outlook Tasks to be one and done or recurring at specific times and days. I can embed links in the tasks directly to action lists in OneNote. This way when a task reminder comes up, I can open it, click on the link and go directly to OneNote to that specific list.

I know all that scheduling and planning can seem overwhelming and it can be. You can decide if or how much scheduling and planning you will do. Not doing anything will leave you drifting through life with no clear destination. Having a system in place with reminders both for prioritizing and allotting time, will help you get things done.

Are you going to be in control of your life or is it going to be in control of you?

Putting the Right Pieces in the Right Places

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Scheduling is Like a Puzzle…and Who Doesn’t Love Puzzles?

Scheduling and planning can be a daunting task, but don’t have to be. Each of us have control over what we do and when we’ll do it. I’ve been writing about scheduling over the past several weeks.

I started out with how to get control of your life. Next, we opened the tool box and looked at OneNote and how I use it. Then I pointed out the increased likelihood of hitting the target by writing things down. Last week I wrote about being intentional and how I use Outlook to be better organized.

This all fits together like the pieces of a puzzle.

Attitude is key to enjoying puzzles. If we approach them with dread, they won’t be much fun. However, if we look at them as a challenge and an opportunity to learn and do better…the experience will be much more enjoyable.

I’ve started really focusing on being more intentionally productive six or eight years ago. I think it started shortly after God smacked me upside the head, I don’t know for sure. What I do know was that I was tired of not getting the things I wanted to, done.

I discovered that time, like a puzzle had fixed parameters. There were a fixed number of pieces, a predetermined picture of what it would look like when it was finished, etc. The question was how to get all the pieces to fit. Once I began to see the similarities, I’ve began to develop…

a system that allows me to be productive with less stress.

A great life example of puzzles is a group activity that I had my team of three assistants do. At a monthly team meeting I dumped 300 jigsaw puzzle pieces out on the table and asked them to put them together. They had no picture of what the finished puzzle would be. They just had a pile of pieces.

As they began sorting and spreading the pieces, they realized there were twelve corners. They continued separating the pieces and finding the edges and sorting by similarities of color and design. They continued this process until they had the three separate 100 piece puzzles finished.

There were several lessons learned that day that correlate with scheduling:

  • Every piece has a place in the puzzle, but some have higher priorities than others. Some things have deadlines or are scheduled meetings that involve others. You can decide what pieces are the corner pieces and can’t be moved around.
  • There are a fixed number of pieces per puzzle. Trying to squeeze those 300 pieces into one puzzle wasn’t going to work. The pieces were looked at, determinations were made and they were sorted accordingly. There are a fixed number of minutes in each day. There are a limited number of things you can do in 24 hours. If you try to put in more things than will fit it just won’t work.
  • It doesn’t matter how fast you want the puzzle finished; you can’t put the piece in any faster than is physically possible. Things often take longer than we think or want. If you haven’t finished and you’re out of time. You either have to quit and come back or reschedule the next thing. You can decide.
  • A big pile of pieces can be overwhelming. Quit thinking about the big pile and just focus on one piece at a time. Don’t let your to do list overwhelm you. Prioritize it and work on the first next thing.

The key to unstressed productivity is knowing yourself and being intentional with your plan.

Getting the pieces of your life to fit into place is like doing a puzzle. It is only stressful if you let it be. You have control over how to put your puzzle together. Remember to have fun with your puzzle…it’s up to you.

Writing It Down Makes It More Real

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Checklist

You’ll Hit What You Aim at Every Time

You need a clear vision of where you want to go, or you will just drift through life going nowhere in particular.

In Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy’s book, Living Forward, they propose a plan for being intentional and stopping the drift. They say drifting usually happens for one or more of the following reasons:

  • We’re unaware – We simply don’t know what’s happening
  • We’re distracted – We aren’t focused on the goals
  • We’re overwhelmed – We take on more than we should
  • We’re deceived – We are often unconscious about our beliefs compared to reality

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” Zig Ziglar

The question of how to organize and plan has come up several times over the past several weeks. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I wasn’t aware of how intentional I had become about avoiding the drift in my life.

A couple of weeks ago, I started the discussion about getting control of your life. Then I wrote about one of the tools I use for this. I had planned to go into another tool this week (maybe next week) but have decided instead to discuss more about the importance of intentional organization.

I’d forgotten how frustrating it was when I didn’t have a clear plan for where I wanted to go or how I was going to get there.

Most people don’t go to the level of detail with their scheduling as I do and that’s okay. What I’ve been trying to figure out is why many of these same people are frustrated and feel that their lives are out of control. Through several discussions I concluded all scheduling is basically the same.

The difference is in the level if intentionality. 

In Ray Edward’s podcast about starting an online business this week, he talks about the three things you must do in order to succeed while avoiding stress and overwhelm. These same things must be done to succeed in life as well.

  • Intention – Know what you want, why you want it, and have a plan for getting it.
  • Focus – Identify the essential activities for getting there and schedule them.
  • Margin – Give yourself time for rest, recreation and reflection.

This sounds a lot like how I schedule my life and my days.

There are studies that show when writing goals down they are more likely to be accomplished. The same thing is true when writing things down on task lists and calendars. You must decide what you want and then take the necessary actions if you are to accomplish it.

Writing things down keeps me accountable to myself.

How Do I Get from Here to There?

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With a Clear Understanding of Your Life’s GPS

A friend and I were recently discussing the sense of out-of-control overwhelm that we were both experiencing. There are so many important, valuable, worthwhile things to do. How will I ever get them all done?

My to-do-list is so long there’s not enough time to read it…let alone do it.

I’m tired of being stuck in this rut and am looking for a way out. Some of the things on our lists were classes and trainings. These should be something to help, but too often just becomes another thing on the list.

Most of us want a clearer direction, but don’t know what that is.

I’ve been thinking about this since our discussion…not to mention studying about it. As I was researching ways to better achieve goals it became clear that there isn’t any real difference in any of them. Sure, there are small nuanced differences but they’re really all the same.

Sometimes the same thing we heard several times before resonates with us this time. Who knows why? It may be the presenter, or the form of presentation, or maybe it’s just timing, who knows? An example of this recently is when I was going through Mark Shinnerer’s, Vision Building course and his comparison of a GPS to a life plan. There really are a lot of similarities in life planning and a GPS.

One thing that’s critical to achieving goals is in prioritization.

This is one of the places I struggle most. When looking at that huge long list of all those important, valuable, worthwhile things to do. Where do I start? This is where accomplishment gets lost. Too much time spent trying to decide.

Here are some GPS similarities:

When going from here to there, using a Global Positioning System, we put in the destination we want to go, and it gives us optional routes to get there. When planning to go from here to there in life’s journey we need to use a Goal Prioritization System. This system will help us determine the path we will take to reach our purpose destination.

  • Determine where you want to go before you start – Knowing where you want to go will make the trip more productive. This doesn’t mean that you can’t change the destination later, but it takes away from forward progress.
  • Choose which of the routes you’re going to take – There are options of shorter and more direct or longer and more scenic. There’s no right or wrong, just choose one and get started. As you are on your way you can change your mind and the GPS will reroute you.
  • Unexpected things out of your control happen – You may encounter road work or a flat tire. These things require some adjustment to your schedule and/or possibly your route. Remember these things happening are out of your control, but how you react to them isn’t.
  • Unplanned things that are in your control – When in route you may encounter scenic stops. You can choose whether to take the time to slow down and smell the roses. You might also come across someone who has had trouble. Stopping or not is also a choice you get to make.

Once you have a clear vision of your destination it’s up to you to get in gear and step on the gas, otherwise you will just sit there thinking about what might have been.

If you don’t move forward you will never reach your destination.

How to Be More Intentional About Being on Time to Meetings with Myself

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My Time Is Just as Important As Anyone Else’s

 

Scheduling and planning accurately are a difficult (practically impossible) thing to get right. This includes not keeping appointments with ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I’m much more intentional about being on time to a meeting with someone else…not so much when I’m meeting with me.


We’ve all been given a limited amount of time; we need to spend it wisely!


How we choose to spend our time is going to vary for each of us. What we spend it on is not the issue. The problem is not a lack of time, it’s a lack of control. Why is it that if we have a day full of meetings and appointments we can make it to all of them on time, but if we fill our day with tasks and projects that don’t involve anyone but ourselves we are running late after the first thing?


Here are three major things that can cause schedules to go wrong:


Things take longer than planned – We have all experienced things taking twice as long, or more, to do than we expected. This is called the Planning Fallacy. This is a phenomenon in which predictions about how long something will take to complete is underestimated. Parkinson’s Law is when we underestimate the time needed as a way of accomplishing more. If I think something should take four hours and then tell myself that I can do it in two, I will get it done faster than if I tell myself I have all day, even if it still takes five. We focus more and work harder when there’s a deadline.

 


Too many things on the list – This is another common problem. Most of us have said yes to too many things. There are so many good things that we need or want to do. The more things we think about the harder it is to focus on one thing. This, like the previous point, pushes us harder to get the things on the list done, even though we know we won’t be able to do them all. Having too many things on the list leads me to the next cause for schedules to go wrong.

 


Distractions and interruptions – Our busy lives are full of these, whether self-inflicted or from outside sources. In this fast-paced digital age, there has never been more opportunities to be distracted. The previous two things are more internal than this one. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have any control, it just means that it often comes from outside sources. These can play havoc on our schedules if we allow them.


You can choose to manage your time better or not…it’s up to you.

 

Managing how I spend my time is up to me. If I’m going to manage it better, first I have to decide that’s what I want to do. Second, I need to consider who I am and what works best for me. Third will require developing a system that works for me.


The flexibility of a digital calendar is nice, but I’ve noticed recently that it’s much easier for me to move things back when it’s a meeting with myself rather than someone else.

 


There’s no perfect system for scheduling and planning, but my time is as valuable as anyone’s. I need to be intentional about how I spend it and be on time to the meetings I’ve scheduled with myself.


It’s up to me!

 

Links to similar Solutions:

How to Live A Well-Balanced Life

How to Get Your Puzzle Pieces to Fit

How to Achieve Your Desired Life Results

 

 

The Next Chapter in “The Saga of the Grain-Bin Home”

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The Hero and Her Guide Are Defeating the Evil Budget Monster

As the voyage continues, Hannah and Mark trek forward on their journey toward the allusive ‘Grain-Bin Home’. An expedition like this is not for the faint of heart. It requires the passionate desire of a hero and the experience and knowledge of a trusted guide.

This story began a year ago with the idea of building a small home by repurposing a couple of used grain bins. The two steel bins would be connected by framed wood construction. This idea was dreamt about, discussed, thought about, revised, discussed some more and over the next several months, the preliminary plan emerged.

The collaboration of the hero and the guide in developing a plan before starting on an adventure like this is critically important to achieving a positive outcome. This planning stage is often as long or longer than the building portion. Turning a dream into a reality is the hardest part of the quest. It’s also the most exciting. It is the part where the imagining turns into the doing.

We prepared a proposal based on the preliminary plans. The dollar amount was more than Hannah wanted to spend. So, we went through a list of things that could be changed or removed to get the project closer to the target figure. This included things like radiant floor heating, Pella Designer Series windows with blinds between the glass, and a pass-through indoor/outdoor fireplace.

As we worked on these revisions, Hannah on the drawing and me on the proposal we were presented with some benefits of having an experience guide and the connections that come with them.

First, I became aware of some tongue and grove V-jointed 1×6 pine that a painter had, which had been stained the wrong color for one of his projects. There was enough of it to do the interior wall that we are planning to put stained wood on. It was offered to us at the cost of the wood…we bought it.

Next, I received a communication from my Pella representatives, that Pella Products of Kansas was going to have a “Contractor Garage Sale”. This was to reduce the number of unclaimed, mis-ordered or slightly damaged items taking up space in their warehouse. Hannah and I went to this sale. With some ‘on the spot’ creative solutions we made some idea adjustments and were able to get all the windows and one of the doors needed. This was a price reduction for the customer of over $23,000 from the original proposal. We will spend a portion of that savings on painting the windows so they will all be the same color.

We are on the cusp of transitioning to the doing.

Hannah is finalizing the design changes created by the earlier price reduction list and the windows and door that were purchased. At the same time, I’m finalizing the figures as per those things as well. In the next few weeks Hannah will securing the money needed, and we will be starting on this adventure.

Keep watching for the next chapter in “Saga of the Grain-Bin Home” and share it with others you think might enjoy this story.

What Does It Take to Be A Builder?

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There’s So Much More to This Building Thing Than Just Construction

I regularly go back through my life plans, especially at this time of the year, reviewing and revising them as needed to build the best life. Just like a construction project needs reviewed and revised in different phases of the project. Whether a building or a life, this process shouldn’t stop once the initial construction is complete. It is an on-going process until the end.

It is amazing to me the correlations between building a business, a life or doing construction. Building terminology is used everywhere. As a part of my life plan review, I was going back through some Michael Hyatt’s Platform University training. One of the things that caught my attention were the words that were used. In the first two sentences of the instructions I found this; “…building your website…”, “…lay an important foundation….” and “…platform-building…”.

The use of this construction terminology is a great analogy with life building as is evident in the more than eighty times it’s used in Scripture. You can find some examples here. In Luke 6:48 (NCV) it says, “…everyone who comes to me and hears my words and obeys. That person is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock. When the floods came, the water tried to wash the house away, but it could not shake it, because the house was built well.” This sounds like a pretty good plan for building a life to me.

If you have read more than a few “Weekly Solutions” posts, you will have noticed the connections with building in many of them. Here are just a few – Building the Life of Your Dreams, Building the Best Life, Means It’s Always Under Construction, The Importance of Intentionality for Building Your Dream Life and Building Your Business Is Critical to The Survival of the Business. This really is the underlying theme for Solution Building. The central purpose is to “help people find solutions for building their dream business and life through improved communication, better business systems, quality construction projects and life lessons.

Most importantly any kind of building, whether it’s a construction project, a life or a business, needs to start with a solid foundation. My foundation is my CORE VALUES built on the SOLID ROCK of Jesus. 1 Cor. 3:11

As we move forward into this new year, we will be sharing more specific examples and systems to help you build your dream business and life. If there are areas in your business or life where you need a solution, let me know in the comment section below.

An Unexpected, Modern-Day Twist to The Christmas Carol

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It’s Never Too Late to Build A Better Life

As I’m working on goal setting and planning for the new year, I’ve been reviewing the past several years. Looking back can be disappointing and discouraging if things haven’t gone as well as you had planned. And this year certainly didn’t go as planned

While thinking about places I fell short and opportunities I missed or ignored, it caused me to think about the Hallmark Christmas movie, “A Shoe Addict’s Christmas”. In this movie a woman, Noelle, accidently gets locked in a department store where she works. While waiting to be rescued a quirky woman, Charlie, appears. Over the next few days Charlie, a guardian angel, helps Noelle rediscover the life she has been avoiding, by visiting Christmases past present and future.

We all have situations that we can look back on and wish we had done something different. We can’t change the past, but what we do today will affect the future.

You may have heard the story (or some variation of it) that Charlie told Noelle in the movie. It goes like this, there was man who was out in the snow and someone came by in a sleigh and offered him a ride. The man refused. He said, “God will take care of me”. Later as the snow continued to get deeper another man in a sleigh came by and offered to help. Once again, the man refused. “God will take care of me.” The next time a sleigh came by the snow was up to the man’s chin. For a third time the man declined the help and said, “God will take care of me”. Then the man is in Heaven and asking God why He didn’t save him. God answers, “I sent three sleighs and you ignored them all”.

Too often we ignore the sleighs that God sends us.

As long as we’re still alive, even if we’ve missed or ignored sleighs in the past, it’s too late to use the next one. It is up to us to decide. There is a balance of faith and doing. Dave Ramsey says to “Pray like it all depends on God but work like it all depends on me.” We need to take of the blinders off and be more observant of the sleighs. “God moves mountains to create the opportunity of His choosing. It is up to you to be ready to move yourself.”, “The Traveler’s Gift”, Andy Andrews.

If I don’t want to get buried in the snow, I need to shovel what I can when I can and take the sleighs when they come along. I was presented some sleighs this past year and took them.

Learn from the past, look to the future, live in the present.

Watch for the sleighs and make this year the best year ever.