Do the Essentials
Daily schedules fluctuate a lot. Between work, appointments, shopping, and after-school activities, every day looks a little different. In fact, this fluctuation isn’t restricted to day by day comparison. In the evening, you may find that your day ended up looking remarkably different than it did when it started. These fluctuations mean that things that you planned on doing may not have gotten done. When I’m pressed for time, I often cut my essentials - reading, prayer, and exercise. This approach is all wrong. Instead of seeking to save a few minutes from the things that you consider to be essential each day, look instead at your to-do list and defer a few tasks for another time.
The essentials are those things that you need to do each day in order to feel that a particular day was a success. As I previously mentioned, my essentials are getting some recreational reading done, praying, and exercising, typically in the form of walking. Whatever your essentials may be, these are the things that should be assigned the highest priority when time is tight, not cut the moment things get difficult. In fact, when you look at the activities that you consider to be essential, you might notice that they’re the things that keep you balanced, motivated, and calm.
No matter what your day brings, do your essentials. They may not happen at the time or in the order that you planned, but they need to get done. When you look back on your weeks, months, and years, these essentials will be the things that move you forward as a human person, something that your to-do list won’t be able to do. You may have to sacrifice some sleep, some project, or some chore in order to do them, but do the essentials no matter what.
The idea that a to-do list should get completely finished defeats the idea of a to-do list. The to-do list should be a compilation of every single task that you need to get done so that your list is in charge of maintaining that running list instead of your brain. You’ll always have something that will need to get done. With that in mind, be comfortable deferring tasks for another day or skipping a few to-dos in order to make sure that you’ve got the essentials covered.
The temptation in time management is when things get tough to cut out the big stuff. Instead of going after your essentials, those things that contribute to a successful day, look at your to-do list and push a few non-essentials off to another time when you can give them the full attention that they deserve.
Listen to Your Body
I hate to admit it, but I’m losing ground to my migraines. Since they started in 2006, we’ve had an on again, off again relationship. At times, they have more control over my life than I do. At other times, they are virtually nonexistent. I’ve been doing all of the right things: solid sleep schedule, good eating, regular exercise, and plenty of water. Yet, from time to time, I get out of orbit. I’ve been in denial about my need for corrective treatment until two things happened. I started keeping a diary, as I should’ve the whole time, and frankly, the diary doesn’t lie. Second, I became irritated that my daily choices had to conform to a rigorous daily regimen of preventative habits. Most days, it’s fine, but what about when I’m on vacation and I want to sleep in or stay up late?
I think that my most recent experience with migraines mirrors our spiritual wellbeing. There are certain things that we should do each day in order to maintain our spiritual balance. While sin is attractive and may even be exciting, we all know the desolation that waits for us on the other side. We know the joy and happiness that comes with a life well lived and the peace that can only be found when we’re living the way we ought to. So, to keep our defenses up against temptation, we pray at various points during the day, we go to Mass on Sunday, and we occasionally go to Confession.
When we slack off on our prayer life, or when we haven’t gone to confession in a while, sin starts piling up on us. We get busy and move prayer down the priority list. Or we get complacent or feel invincible and stop actively working against our principal sin. It’s in those times that we fall into sin. Correcting these failures requires more effort to get back into our prayer routine. That friction may even discourage us and keep us out of orbit for even longer. It’s a cycle that we continue to face every day.
The same is true for our physical health. We know we should eat right, drink water, and exercise. When we’re in the routine, there’s little friction and it’s easier to persevere. Yet, when we fall out of the habit and skip a few days, it easily becomes a week, or a few months. Getting back into the routine requires tremendous effort that often fizzles out by week two. Your body needs good food to energize it, it needs water to cleanse, it needs exercise to maintain healthy levels of activity, and it needs prayer to relieve stress and connect with the spiritual dimension of our personhood. When we neglect any one area, our body sends us alerts, and if we ignore enough of them, we end up somewhere we don’t want to be.
Living a happy and healthy life yields tremendous benefits, but it can only be achieved when healthy choices are backed up with discipline. Only when we’re willing to do the work will we reap the rewards. Listen to your body, meet its needs, and enjoy the fruits of your work.
The Two Most Important Times of Day
There are two critical times of interaction with your wife each day. They are the times are when you say goodbye in the morning and hello in the evening. While both take only moments, I consider them to be real tone-setters for the day.
Mornings are typically characterized by frantic preparations. We wake up from a dead sleep, rush to shower, shave, eat, and get out the door on time. During the school year, our morning routine includes herding our children through the same process, often while facing resistance.
I find it to be incredibly important to take even just a few moments before Alison leaves the house to stop what I’m doing and say goodbye for the day. While we’re awake for 15 or even 18 hours, most of those hours are spent apart. In order to keep my day moving in the right direction, I want to press pause, and make sure Alison and I have a proper goodbye.
I read an article once about the importance of a parent stopping everything to greet their spouse when they come home. The article wanted parents to show their children, through this simple act, that nothing was more important or valued than one’s spouse. I think the premise is a good one. Just as taking a moment or two in the morning is important, greeting each other at the end of the day can be just as precious. It’s a nice reminder of the importance of one another. We are made for work, but more importantly, we’re made for each other. Now that Benedict’s walking, sometimes I even open the safety gate and let him toddle over to greet Alison when she comes in the door.
Schedules shift and we all have deadlines for getting out the door and on our way. I hope that you’ll make time at the beginning and end of each day to properly say goodbye and hello, and in that way, reaffirm your importance to one another.
Cutting Your Schedule
It’s said that the worst boss that you’ll ever work for is yourself. At one time or another, you may take on a side job in addition to the work at your main employer. When you take on additional work, there’s little opportunity for you to take on additional hours in the day. Instead, hours have to be reallocated from activities such as watching TV, surfing the Internet, or sleep. At the same time, a fast paced life is kind of fun. The American Dream compels us to get out of bed at 5am and stay up late into the night toiling so that we can have it all.
We all wish we could spend hours every day with our family. In fact, family time is perhaps the single highest priority that we have in our daily schedules. No matter how hard we have to work or how long our to-do list is, we yearn to have downtime to play in the yard with our kids or at the very least to share a meal together. There’s no doubt that our schedules are pushed to the limit in an attempt to wring out every last moment of productivity. When you do find yourself in a place where you need more time during the day, cut television and internet first, then choose wisely.
Full schedules demand precise scheduling and sincere sacrifice. Sleep can only be trimmed so far before it starts working against you, but when your schedule demands more time, you can be certain that your days of sleeping in are over. That’s why it’s so important for us to be time management surgeons. We need to cut the right things, we need to trim other things back, and we need to act with deadly precision. There are some activities that can be cut out entirely, but there are others that will need to be aggressively curtailed. Take, for example, the time you spend reading daily. Reading is a very good thing and it helps you grow as a person. While reading the right books may be wildly stimulating, if you need more time, you might have to place limits on your reading, perhaps cutting back to 30 minutes a day. An hour or two a day of reading might get you further, faster, but when your schedule is tight, those extra minutes are a luxury that can be traded in for the sake of family time.
When it comes to cutting critical activities, it can be helpful to create a prioritized list. Prayer, work, play, and relaxation are all a part of a healthy lifestyle, but when cuts have to be made, everything is on the table. By prioritizing the importance of each activity in your daily life, you can save the most important while sacrificing the least important. In this way, you maintain the integrity of those things that are most essential to your routine. As always, when trying new systems and time management ideas, it’s best to experiment for a few days and see how things work out. You can always add things back in or make further cuts based on your experience.
Now, let’s briefly put these ideas into action. My web design business has really been taking off and I’ve needed to find more time during the day to work so that I can take on more clients and grow my business. I’ve determined that my maximum number of work hours during the day is around 7 hours. That gives me time in the evening to spend with Alison, time during the day to care for Benedict, and time in the morning for prayer, reading, and exercise. From my leisure time, I’ve had to cut reading the newspaper as it took almost two hours a day for me to get through it. I could have simply pushed newspaper reading into the evening, but that would take away from time with Alison, so the cut had to be made. With those 7 hours for work, I’ve allocated five hours to client web design work and two hours to Catholic Husband and other activities. Of those two hours, one is dedicated to the blog, so that leaves me with 60 short minutes a day to work on other projects, like books and iOS app development.
Would I like to read the newspaper daily? Absolutely. Would I prefer to release new products throughout the year? Definitely. Yet, I’ve come to the conclusion that there simply isn’t enough time. So, I focus on the activities that will generate the most revenue for the business and income for my family. At the same time, I made cuts in order to preserve my family time, and I’ve maintained focus on a project that I really love, the blog.
Time management is truly a skill that we must learn and master, and it demands that we make difficult cuts. Yet, to save the things that we love, we must sacrifice. I encourage you to go through a similar process and ensure that you’re doing the things that you want and cutting what needs to be cut.
Coping with Loss
It’s said that we tend to experience God in times of tribulation more than in our daily life. People who have no trials, sorrows, or sufferings struggle to know God because human instinct says that there’s no need of God when all is well. The mark of a saint is one who relies on God in all seasons of life, both good and bad. At one time or another, we’ll all experience loss and in those times, we should both pray and celebrate life.
The loss of anyone in our life is always sad. Absence is difficult to comprehend and oftentimes doesn’t seem real. Even the loss of someone that we were only casually acquainted with can be a reminder of our own mortality. We’re a connected people and when one of those connections is broken due to death, it affects those of us who are left behind. While it’s natural to focus on the absence, we should also focus on the fullness of life that was lived. We should celebrate the impact that our loved one had on the community, the great things they were able to experience, and the cherished memories that we all hold.
Prayer is also a natural response to death. Our prayer can be much richer when we move past the initial waves of shock and grief. We can, and should, take on the role of intercessor for our loved one, offering up corporal and spiritual works of mercy on their behalf. Through the Communion of Saints, we’re able to gain graces that they might need if they’re undergoing purification in Purgatory. At the same time, they’re able to intercede for us as we continue our Earthly journey. Though we’re certainly physically separated by death, we’re still connected through our spiritual lives.
The celebration of one’s life is an important part of the grieving process. Sharing stories and writing some down is a way to preserve both the memory and legacy of our loved ones. These memories will be how future generations come to know their ancestors and their family history. Be grateful, too, for the opportunity to be brought together with extended family. Although the circumstances are not ideal, the funeral is still an opportunity for you to see and be with family members whom you may have not seen for some time.
Coping with loss is never easy. If we ensure that our grieving includes prayer and celebration of life, then we’ll cherish the memory of our loved one’s life and ensure that our bonds are not broken as we continue to journey together through life.
Behind Every Great Warrior is A Great Family
We owe a great debt to our current military members and to all veterans who’ve honorably served. While it’s plainly evident that their sacrifice, courage, and willingness to serve deserves to be recognized, we ought not overlook those people who stand right behind them: their families. Families of military members and Gold Star families, those whose loved one died in the line of duty, sacrifice every day right alongside service members. Let’s not forget those who stand behind and in support of our warriors.
The sacrifices of military families most often takes the form of lost time. There are endless missed holidays, birthdays, baseball games, and life’s special moments. While the family is at home taking part in these events, their warrior is deployed to a foreign country, wishing he or she was home. So much of the military member’s time is spent deployed, doing what they were trained to do, that the family must bear the brunt of this absence. Reunions are sweet, but getting to the day when their loved one comes home takes a special kind of patience.
We need to support these families, especially when their loved one is deployed. Each family will need something different, but it’s an almost universal truth that the spouse who’s home caring for the kids needs a break. Offer free babysitting. If the couple doesn’t have kids, invite the spouse out as they’re probably lonely at home. Mow their lawn, drive their kids to soccer practice. Any and all of these acts of kindness are things we should be doing as neighbors, but when we take special care during deployments, we also use these acts of kindness as acts of thanks.
Of course, it goes without saying, that we should pray for the safe return of our service members. These days, it doesn’t matter where a deployment takes them, there’s always some form of danger. Prayer goes a long way. Supporting them and their families through prayer can be a great thing.
Today I offer you this: behind every great warrior is a great family. Take good care of them and don’t forget that sacrifice is not only made by our men and women in uniform, but also by those who support and love them.
Vacations Without Your Kids
Our children’s dependance on us is both proper and something that needs to be managed. It’s a wonderful thing that our children rely on us for their basic needs, for guidance, and for instruction. At the same time, this 24 hour job we call parenting is incredibly exhausting. What parent doesn’t enjoy the peace and quiet that only the post-bedtime hours can bring? If we’re not careful, the exhaustion of raising children can adversely impact the most important relationship in our lives: our marriage.
One of the best ways to steal some downtime in order to strengthen your marriage is by taking small trips. Vacationing with your kids is lots of fun, yet it’s also important for you to take trips alone with your wife. After all, while your relationship with your children is important, the core relationship upon which your family is built is your martial relationship. Alison and I took a three day work related trip earlier this summer and we left Benedict with my parents. We missed him terribly, but it was good for us all the same.
Your marriage needs constant attention and maintenance. Marriages don’t fail overnight; it’s through years of neglect that they suffer catastrophic failures. Just as a regular date night is important, so too are these mini-vacations; they’re a time to focus on one another. It doesn’t even need to be an expensive or exhaustive trip, either. A quick tune-up in the form of a simple night or weekend away is all that’s required.
A question may be rising in the back of your mind: how often should we have these marriage trips? There’s no clear answer, but certainly more infrequently than your family vacations. Your marriage is sustained and nurtured through your daily lives. The intimacy that you share as you both experience the safety of sharing your thoughts, hopes, dreams, and desires is one way your marriage is nurtured. It’s also sustained through kind words and acts of service. Additionally, your marriage is sustained through your shared parenting, raising the children that you lovingly brought into this world. A parents-only vacation is simply another outlet for you both to continue to grow your marriage.
I encourage you and your wife to find some time before the end of the year, if at all possible, to have a parents-only vacation. Your marriage deserves it and, above all, your children deserve to be raised in a home grounded in a strong marital bond.
How to Read the News
Online news is both a blessing and a curse. You can get up-to-the minute updates, but oftentimes the initial reporting is wrong. You can read stories from across the country and around the world, yet the stories are usually filtered depending on the bias of a particular news organization. Perhaps the worst part about online news sources is that the vast, vast majority of content is simply republished content from another source.
A few weeks ago, there was an airplane accident in South Carolina in which an Air Force F-16 had a mid-air collision with a Cessna. I read the article on one major network’s website and then went to the local affiliate to get more detailed information. The articles on both sites were the same, verbatim. I went to other major news sites and the exact same thing happened. Each source was hosting the content of this article which was written by a staff AP reporter. What a huge disappointment.
I’ve been subscribing to the Wall Street Journal for the past nine months and I must say, it’s completely changed my views on news. I subscribe for two reasons. First, the quality of the articles improves both my vocabulary and global scope. Instead of reducing language to something commonplace, they elevate the experience by using appropriate and correct words at somewhere around an advanced high school level. It’s refreshing to be reported to as an adult. The range of articles expands my worldview from just where I live to issues and events impacting communities everywhere. Second, I subscribe because they do actual reporting. Generally speaking, the Journal seems to have very high editorial standards and so you don’t find much, if any, conjecture in the articles. It’s nearly impossible to identify the reporter’s thoughts on the issue save in the opinion section. Even better, their reporting is proactive. Instead of waiting for the AP to write the article, they go out and find stories. These stories are ones that no one else is writing. In fact, on the bottom of the front page, every day, is some quirky human interest piece.
Our cultural demand for 24 hour news has put journalists in a very difficult position. It’s an untenable situation that causes them to feel pressured to report something, anything, both to fill time and to beat their competitors. That’s where the newspapers bring redemption. Readers expect updates once per day. That gives journalists time to do research, discover facts and, frankly, to provide content that’s truly compelling. Certainly there are times when I skip articles that were published in the morning because by evening, when I sit down to read the day’s paper, everything has changed. However, for the most part, once per day updates is just right.
Newspapers offer one more key benefit that online news hasn’t quite mastered: a menu of options. News websites are massive and often confusing. A newspaper, even a newspaper’s app, provides a structured, organized menu of articles for you to choose from. They’re grouped by section and organized with some degree of prioritization. It’s through this menu that you find stories that you might not otherwise see and because of that feature, you learn things that you otherwise may not learn. They’re able to do this because instead of filling up screen space with ads, pop-ups, and sleazy clickbait stories, they place other articles in the same category together.
I use my time each day reading the paper as an intellectual exercise in which I expand my mind and my horizons. In all of my years of productivity hacking, I can think of few other habits that have helped me grow faster and resulted in higher rates of satisfaction.
Persistance vs. Overwork
As I sit down to write this post, I’m surrounded my mountains of stuff. My office is a complete wreck and frankly, I don’t work well unless my surroundings are clean. It’s been a very crazy few days between flying, being sick, and chasing Benedict all while maintaining a household. I’ve been seeking a greater balance in my life that involves prayer time, reading time, play time, down time, cleaning time, family time, and exercise time, all of which take away potential work time. Whether you’re self-employed, work from home, have a scheduled job, or are a stay-at-home parent, we all face this great balancing act. The sticky part is determining what qualifies as persistence and what qualifies as overwork.
Overworking yourself is just as dangerous as being too idle. If you’re overworking, then by definition, some other area of your life is being neglected. Too much neglect and you start to move into reactionary mode instead of proactive mode. You become a fire-fighter whose priority is whatever burns the hottest. It’s a bad way to live because, like the rat in the wheel, you never catch up.
Persistence, on the other hand, is a necessary trait. It gets you up at 5am to work on your book. It gets you out on the trail when you don’t want to walk. It gets you to your desk when you’d rather binge watch something on Netflix. It’s the coal in the fire that keeps you moving forward, upward, and closer to achievement.
So how do you know if you’re being persistent or if you’re overworking? Persistence respects family time while overworking rolls right over it. Persistence obeys your work hours boundaries while overworking is always on. Persistence recognizes that vacation is an important component of success while overworking sees vacation as an impediment to success.
If you’re like me right now and feel overwhelmed, unsure of which of the dozens of projects to take care of, then you have to make a decision. What is one thing that you can do right now to get back into the drivers seat? For me, it’s a day of cleaning, organizing, sorting, and purging. I think I’ll start that now.
Overworking: it’s never worth it.
Regroup Weekly
I clean our house every Saturday, both inside and out. The laundry is done, the floor is vacuumed, the car is washed, the bathrooms are cleaned, and the lawn is mowed. Saturday evening is a great time of relaxation for me because everything is in its place. By the following Friday, life has happened and the house needs cleaning again. I maintain this weekly schedule because at some point during the week, everything goes off the tracks and I need a reset.
Just as my cleaning routine has a weekly cycle, so too does your life. Once a week, you need to take an hour or so and get your life put back together. Reorganize your to-do list, prioritize your projects, and plan the path forward. Weekly cleaning allows me the time to address the building clutter. We all have clutter that builds up in various ways and while we usually intend to address the issues, there always seems to be a steady encroachment. This weekly planning time is a new chance to maintain cleanliness and to restore order in your home.
Weekly planning gets you ready for the week ahead. Various factors impact your weekly schedule, so taking an hour or two either at the end or beginning of the week will help you to get everything realigned. Sickness may have taken two productive days away from you, a new project may have started, or you may even have gotten ahead on your to-do list. The better prepared you are for the week ahead, the more productive you’ll be. When you feel boxed in by clutter or overwhelmed by a long to do list and no plan for completing those tasks, it becomes easy to fall into a rut. By setting aside time each week to regroup, both in cleaning and planning, you can be better prepared for the week ahead and ensure that small problems don’t become major roadblocks.