I confess that I’m somewhat preoccupied with questions regarding the use of time. I confess that this is primarily because I’m still engaged in a fight to take a consistent Sabbath. I failed again last week as I spent one day listening to Andrew Zirschky and being with friends. (It was well worth the time, though, and I’ll get a post up about AZ’s talk this week). My latest approach is to set my alarm for 5:30 every morning and get to work early before distractions and interruptions come. I’m also shifting around some of my other obligations to clear larger blocks for sermon prep. I know I’m a “big block of time” kind of worker. I need to be able to effort something for at least an hour before I can begin to hyper-focus and be productive. I’m hoping these will help.
I confess that Zirschky mentioned the way that kids are over-scheduled as one of the reasons for social media engagement. He glossed over it quickly, but I’m convinced it is a central issue. What kind of patterns are we setting for our children in terms of their pace of life. Between school, homework, sports practices, games, tournaments, music lessons, church, and family activities, our children are drastically overscheduled. Busy doesn’t mean important, and it rarely means happy or healthy. I don’t really have an answer, it’s just my confession that I’m thinking about this right now, and hoping to change some patterns.
I confess that sermon prep is still taking more time than it used to – or at least it seems that way to me. I confess that my suspicion is that I’m finally figuring out what it takes to write well, and learning there are no shortcuts. I know that I study a bit more than I used to before I actually begin writing. I also think I’ve learned that, for me, the real magic (if there is to be any), usually happens on the 3rd or 4th revision after the first rough draft – so getting to that 3rd or 4th revision is the key to writing well, which takes time.
I confess that I’m switching to Mac, hopefully this week. I confess that my biggest reticence is that I know Word really well, and have worked on it for a long, long time. I know a lot of time saving keyboard function shortcuts, and can format quickly. The switch to Pages is intimidating. I confess that my biggest hope is that Pages has a quicker way to insert em-dashes.
I confess that I finally updated the software on my iphone. What can I say, I’m a late adopter. I wish I would have done it sooner, because iOS7 is pretty slick, and my phone is functioning at a much higher level. I’m due for an upgrade, but have been putting it off because I’m not sure how much phone to get. I was poking around this morning and noticed that old iPhone 4’s are actually selling for a pretty fair amount, used. I’m thinking that if I can sell my old phone, I can finance the upgrade… will investigate further.
I confess that Shrink is officially in typesetting and design phase. I haven’t yet seen first pages, but hope to soon. I confess that I’m now on the prowl for endorsers. Anybody have an email for Eugene Peterson? I promise not to abuse it.
Okay friends, I made my confession. Now it’s time for yours:
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