I wrote last week about the author Laura Vanderkam and her ideas on time management. She has a three-part series of short e-books that offer great ideas. I’d already read “What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast,” and when I went onto her site last week I noticed this one, which I bought for about $3 through Audible.com. (I’m an Audible member and pay a monthly membership fee of $12.95–something like that–but since these short books are only about $3 it’s not worth it for me to buy them with my credits,, so I just bought it directly.) I also bought “What the Most Successful People Do at Work,” also for around $3. And then I realized that I needed to listen to her book 168 Hours: Why You Have More Time Than You Think, which I did buy with an Audible credit. (My Audible credits are stacking up, so I need to use them.) The link to her website above will give you ordering info on all of her books.
Tools
A Third Time Tool and a Helpful Author.
I wrote yesterday about two tools that I’m finding to be useful: SwipesApp and Evernote.
Today I’m writing about a third tool that I knew about and had tried to use before and also about the author who brought it to my attention. I’m trying not to make the tool into the Next Big Thing, a mistake I often make. The tool is called “Toggl,” and I had first heard about it from an author and blogger I follow named Laura Vanderkam, a time management consultant.
Structure Can Set Us Free.
If we use it correctly, that is.
So I’m continuing to gain wisdom, both practical and spiritual, from my wonderful Bible study group. A couple of weeks ago I was a little puzzled by the fact that the teaching leader’s phone kept chiming as she worked her way through our discussion of the study questions. Why on earth doesn’t she turn that off? I wondered. She’d just reach over, touch the screen, and continue. I thought she was getting text messages or something. Couldn’t they wait?
A Nifty–And Free–Tool
My first attempt to do a screenshot! It’s a bit blurry, but I think you get the picture. (In a manner of speaking.) This view is of the homepage of the website called “TomatoTimer.com,” which is an online timer that incorporates the principle of something called “the Pomodoro Technique.” Again, as with so many great ideas and websites, I have no idea how I got onto this. I have a vague memory of its being mentioned in a YouTube video. Anyway, there’s a whole cottage industry (books, an actual little tomato-shaped timer, etc.) around the very simple idea of working for 25 minutes, taking a 5-minute break, then working another 25 minutes, and so on.
Tool Costs
I seem to be on a tool tear, as it were. Over the past several weeks I’ve written about using Scrivener as a writing tool, my little laptop as a bill-paying tool, and habits as tools to help lend structure to my life. But . . . I’ve also emphasized that tools don’t do the work for us. So I’m dedicating this post to two non-tool-users, Woody Allen and K. Lee ScottHabits Are Just Tools!
Here’s what I want: to move along doing the grungy stuff on automatic pilot while I think great thoughts. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Suddenly, at the end of the day, I’d realize that every task had been done perfectly but that I hadn’t had to exert any effort to do them. All done through the magical power of habits and routines. We all know, though, that it ain’t never gonna happen. And guess what? it would be a shame if it did
The Strategy of Convenience
Another habits principle is that you’re more likely to do what’s convenient and less likely to do what isn’t. It struck me just a day or two ago that I had a tool that I loved, that was extremely convenient and which I could use more: my darling little laptop. You can see in the picture how small it is. [Note: this is a stock image; as with so many other pictures, this one was lost in the website move. And now, as I re-do this post, that little laptop is long gone–I think I’m o the third one now.] I carry it around with me from room to room just as some people carry around their smartphones. [Again, a further note: I certainly now have a smartphone!] A couple of days ago I sat down to pay some bills and realized that I hadn’t balanced the checkbook for some time. I’ve still been using a paper check register to do this, and I thought, Why don’t I use my laptop? I googled “virtual check register” and found something called “checkbook.com.” I also used the strategy of the “clean slate,” another Gretchen Rubin idea. I didn’t bother with going back and checking every transaction since the last time I did the balancing act; I don’t think I’ve ever found a mistake on the bank’s side, so what was the point? The important thing is for me to have some kind of backup information, although I guess it would be fine just to rely on the bank’s online statement. I may re-think the issue in the future, but at least for now I can just enter items online and see the balance computed for me. I’m also going to go ahead and start actually paying the bills online, something I’ve resisted doing for some reason. Why should I go through the inconvenient process of writing out checks, entering them in the register, putting the check and the payment slip in an envelope, hunting up a stamp and a return address label, and then mailing them? Hmmm. As soon as I get finished writing this post I’ll go to the bank website, pay off yesterday’s credit card charges and pay the two bills I have right now. One is a medical bill that will have to be paid by check, but the other is the monthly phone/internet charge, so I can set up online bill pay for that. (I realize that the preceding may sound like I’m still using a quill pen and paying bills with bags of coins, but I’m really trying to become more hip and happening!) I’ve been wanting to establish the habit of keeping up with our finances on a daily or semi-daily basis; the use of a convenient, familiar, well-liked tool will help me do that.An Obliger’s Tool
I wrote last week about my struggles to keep promises I make to myself and reach goals I set for myself, as I am a classic Obliger. Those of us who fit into this category need some kind of outside push to get going, and this push is usually described as accountability. But, as I said last week in “The Accountability Conundrum,” it’s sometimes very hard to set up that kind of structure.A Beloved Classic
Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman by Anne Ortlund, originally published by Word Books, 1977, available in many other formats and editions.
Well! After the Great Book Cleanout of several weeks ago, I couldn’t find my copy of this book and was very distressed to think that I might have thrown it out. I do go back and re-read it periodically, and it means a great deal to me, so I was greatly relieved when it turned up.
I quoted Anne in the “eliminate and concentrate” post last week. She was a tremendously talented and energetic woman who was a pastor’s wife, author, composer, and speaker. I’m sorry that I never got to hear her speak in person, but reading this book is almost as good. I would strongly urge you, if you’ve never done so, to get hold of a copy. It’s quite short, only 132 pages in my edition, so you don’t have to make a major investment of time to read it.
Eliminate . . .
. . . and concentrate.
Great advice from Christian writer and speaker Anne Ortlund, who died in November 2013. I’ll be doing a book club post on Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman, her 1977 classic, later on this month.
For now, though, I’ll just concentrate on these three words. You may think, well, easy enough for her to say. What on earth can I eliminate? I’d love to concentrate just on what I love the most, what I feel most called to do, but hey! What am I supposed to do with all this other stuff that’s been thrust upon me?
No easy answers here. I do think, though, that sometimes we take on responsibilities that don’t belong to us. Many years ago I read a statement in a Bible Study Fellowship commentary that would have saved me from some unwise commitments of my own had I followed it. I can’t quote it exactly and can’t remember what we were studying at the time. The general idea, though, was that if you take on something that really should be done by someone else, not only are you overextending yourself and probably therefore shirking your real obligations, but you are crowding out someone else who could and should do that job. Isn’t that an interesting idea? Your overcommitment is someone else’s deprivation.