Why Procrastination Is BAD For You (And Even Worse For Those Who Love You)

May 23rd, 2012 No Comments

Are you a professional procrastinator? A Pro-Pro, if you will? I am. I’ll wait until the last possible moment to complete any task. The pressure builds, the anxiety grows, and all of the creative fuel I need suddenly appears in my creative tank. I thrive on doing things at the last minute.

Or so I tell myself.

The truth is, procrastinating and completing things last minute makes me feel like I’ve just eaten a giant plate of steak nachos and chased it with a bacon milkshake. Queasy. I am notorious for being a Pro-Pro, much to the chagrin of my poor co-workers, my poor wife, and my poor anyone-I’m-in-relationship-with.

Procrastination, it turns out, is bad for relationships. Like, really bad. It takes a toll. Others depend on me to finish what is mine at a pace that allows them to finish what is theirs.  It has certainly not helped grease the “friendship wheels” for me to cross the finish line just as the finish line was being rolled up. That was a mixed metaphor, I know, but that’s what happens when I procrastinate. Things are not as clear, as strong, or as impactful as they could have been if I’d disciplined myself and not procrastinated. And I want my life to be clear, strong, and impactful.

So don’t meet the deadline, beat the deadline.

Beat it by a day or a week or a month. See what happens to your status among your friends and family and co-workers. See what happens to your opportunities as new possibilities open because you’re running ahead, not behind. See especially what happens to your own soul as you free it from the crushing weight of last-minute living. Beat the deadline and say NO to being a Pro-Pro.

Now I have to get back to the four retreat talks I’ve given myself 13 days to write when I’ve actually had five months to write them.

Sorry about that, friends, family, and co-workers. (I wrote this blog for me.)

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Whoever Tells The Best Story, Wins

May 17th, 2012 No Comments

I’m reading a book called Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, by John Medina.  Medina is the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University and teaches regularly at the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington.  He is an internationally respected developmental molecular biologist and research consultant.  All that is to say, Medina is a smart guy. And this is a smart book.

Probably my favorite book on science and humanity since Bill Bryson’s A Brief History of Nearly Everything, Medina goes into brain-stimulating detail about how “we don’t pay attention to boring things” and why our sedentary lifestyles are rotting our brains.  He talks about our brain’s evolution and why we should have a treadmill in our office cubicles.  The fact that Medina does this all with a brisk, engaging, and very humorous writing style makes the book and its material more than accessible; it is truly engaging.  My brain likes it.

Which makes me think of that book title by Annette Simmons (okay, I had to Google it to find out it was written by Simmons) called, Whoever Tells The Best Story Wins.  Medina has fascinating material to work with and wonderful insight into how that material applies to daily living.  But lots of professors, doctoral students, and medical professionals have the same material and insight, and I wouldn’t want to spend three minutes in a room with them.  Not so with Medina.  I’d love to have him over for dinner.  Why?  Because he tells the best story.  As such, he wins. Also, he lives nearby so I wouldn’t feel so bad when I ask him to leave early because I want go to sleep.

As you look over the details of your life, especially the work you’re engaged in, how is your storytelling?  When I look at mine, I sometimes find it pretty stale.  Get up, go to work, come home, watch TV, go to bed.  But the material I have to work with is not the problem.  I have a great life as most of us in the so-called “first world” do.  The problem is I that often miss that great life because I’m not fully engaged as the storyteller God has made me.  I settle for a to-do list kind of life because I’m not getting off my butt to tell a better story.

You and I have much the same rich material to work with: eating, sleeping, getting the kids to school, getting our work done on time, loving people the best we can, trying to figure ourselves out.  How we spin that material means the difference between being a dreadful bore and a sought-after dinner guest.  It means the difference between making a living (which has value) and having the life you’ve always wanted (which has serious impact…and is also a delightful book by John Ortberg).

God made you a storyteller.  I know this because he made you in His image and He is the Master Storyteller.  So how then will you tell your story today?  Using the basic material of your responsibilities, opportunities, and relationships today, what kind of story will you tell?

(photo credit: Influx Images for Imagebank)

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How To (Totally) Make Someone’s Day

May 15th, 2012 No Comments

Yesterday I got an email from a friend.  You may remember email as that form of communication we used before texting.  I’m not trying to be snarky, I just know that the middle school and high school students I work with speak only with their thumbs and I’m trying to sound like I totally, like, fit in and stuff.

Anywho.

My friend sent me an email yesterday. And it was a great gift.

My friend’s email was chock full of words, as human communication often is.  But it was the words my friend chose and the order they were arranged in that made all the difference.   These were blessing words.

A blessing is an ancient tradition.  Back in biblical times (when Moses rode around on dinosaurs), a blessing was how one person imparted certain things to another person. Things like:

  • Hope for a better future.
  • Authority to accomplish great things.
  • A clearer sense of identity and mission.

In other words, a blessing communicated to a person, “This is who you are! This is what you are to be about!” Which is why blessings are such gifts.

Because we all have the memory of a goldfish (which I’m told is about 30 seconds long, though I’d love to meet the poor researcher who had to spend their time discovering this).  We forget who we are and the important work/play we need to be about.  We forget that much of what fills our calendar and our closets may have nothing to do with the unique person God made each of us to be.  We forget that we are beloved, adopted, set apart.  Blessings bring us back home to reality.

I’m grateful my friend sent me my email blessing.  It reminded me of truth in the very moment truth’s voice was the toughest to hear. And it made me think: who do I need to bless today?  Who in my life needs reminding of how special and loved they are?  What’s keeping me from just flat out telling them?  What’s keeping you?

Email somebody a blessing today.  Text it to them.  Shock them by sending them a handwritten note.  Or Holy One Direction, Batman, just speak it right to their face and follow it with a hug. You could totally, like, make their day and stuff.

(I referenced One Direction to show how youth-culture savvy I am even though I still can’t text very well.)

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