Platform Building 106: Set Your Ultimate Writing Goals (or What Kind of Cake Will You Bake?)

The pictured cake is made up of a number of individual ingredients: chocolate, flour, eggs, milk, chocolate, baking powder, sugar, chocolate among them. When we follow a recipe we add each ingredient in specified amounts and perhaps even in a set order to achieve success. Even those (myself included) who use a recipe as a guide rather than a rigid proclamation will usually not vary the measurements too far from those given in the recipe. Why? Straying too far from the recipe or leaving out just one ingredient (like sugar, or maybe chocolate) can mean failure, or at least baking the wrong cake.

In the continuing saga of our Great Platform Building Adventure, we have examined our motives and our use of time. We've identified our life's purposes so we can draw from them. We've brainstormed our goals and then sorted out the ingredients that we cannot use to make our cake. Now let's take a look at what sorts of cakes we'll bake.

Your Ultimate Writing Goals

What are the quintessential things you want to accomplish in your lifetime with your writing? What at the end of your life, will you regret not having done? Now's the time to write down your ultimate goals.

You will want to make sure your goals are realistic and attainable by you. For instance, do not write that you will be an agented multi-published author sought after by a plethora of traditional publishers. That is not a goal but a nice dream. Why? Because you do not have complete control of attaining your objective. Attainment depends on the particular preferences of agents, publishers and readers, all of which lie outside your control. You can strive to know them, but they still lie within the provance of others.

If, instead, you make your goal to do everything in your power to become an agented multi-published author with a good grasp on what reader's want, you have complete control of that goal. It is attainable by you. Never set as a goal something for which you must wait upon someone else for attainment. That's inviting delays and heartache. That puts you in the victim seat. Too many authors paint themselves as victims, persecuted by agents and editors. Don't be a victim. Empower your life by setting goals that you alone, walking in God's will, can attain.

Homework

Set your ultimate writing goals and assign a realistic deadline for accomplishing them. Be careful here: don't give in to the mindset that you have no time and set your goals too far in the future. But don't make them, in your enthusiasm, so close you won't have time to attain them in time and will get frustrated.

Now define the steps you'll need to take to get to these goals. In my case, I set accomplishing my ultimate writing goals for 10 years from now. I then identified goals for where I want to be along this path in five years. I also gave myself goals for a year from now (you could do three-year goals if you wanted also). I will take my one-year goals and break them down over the 12 months of 2010, and then draw my weekly and daily goals from them.

Next week we'll talk about launching a platform to support and help you attain your ultimate writing goals.

What about you? What type of cake will you bake?

Put Action to Your Writing

The best writing advice is simple. You must write to be a writer. That advice is easier to hear than to implement, at least in my life. There are days I struggle to make this one decree a reality in my schedule. Homeschooling three active boys, trying to be my family's sole income earner with my writing, and pretty much life in general all plot to keep me from doing what I need to do.

That is my story and I am sticking to it.

Most of the days “life gets in the way” are those days I choose to play on Facebook, IM or stagnate in front of the television. My own actions steal my time and not so much the circumstances that surround me. Having a house full of boys can try my patience and limit my alone time but the amount of minutes in the day does not change. The thing that changes is my action with those minutes. Here are some ideas for using small pockets of time that might help you also.

Using Minutes Wisely for Writing

1. Waiting is a great time for me to collect my thoughts for potential blogs. Using the sites around me, the conversations that can be overheard or just the circumstances can be the five points I need to make a solid article for my website.

2. Feeding my children has to happen every day (otherwise they whine). The time between prep work is a good time to check emails and tweets because I am limited by the amount of time it takes water to boil or chicken to cook and I can not lose the day to the social networking. 

3. Limited electronics usage is good for the whole family. Turning off the television creates more available time in the day. These hours can be used to write articles in long hand, read industry material or niche books or just to be with the family. 

4. I make a list of things that can be completed in five minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes or one hour. Then I use that list to take advantage of unexpected free time – like when my toddler actually goes right to sleep at nap time. 

5. I have a schedule and make sure my friends and family KNOW that schedule. The more people that understand my work plans, the easier it is to make that work schedule a reality. With no plan in place, other things will dictate how you do what you do instead of you being in control.

Life will happen but a good plan can make working through life less stressful. The better I prepare to be a good steward over each minute of the day, then the more likely I am to complete the tasks that prepare the way to fulfilling my purpose.

There is always an excuse not to do what I know needs to be done. The difference between a successful writing career and a stagnant life is the choice I make to accept my own excuses or to push on to that purpose.

Platform Building 105: Refine Your Goals (or Get Ready to Bake a Cake)

Go with me here for a minute: You're in the kitchen ready to bake a cake (for some of you this may be a big stretch). You have everything you need strewn on the counter in front of you: mixer, bowl, flour, eggs, milk, etc. - everything to make a wonderful confection except a recipe. Now, for some of you this might not present a problem, but the rest us are contacting Houstin. Why? We don't know what to do next. We don't know how many eggs to use, or the order in which to add the ingredients, how long to beat the batter, how long to bake the cake. We can't go on without a plan. You see, a recipe is a set of instructions, a plan for making a cake.  Without it we would feel pretty frustrated as we tried to guess ingredients, measurements, processes and times. Without it we might not produce a cake anyone would want to eat (ourselves included).

Where am I going with this? Well, the cake here represents the successful completion of our life's purposes as they pertain to our writing. Our goals can be likened to the ingredients for a cake. They are important, yes, but they are not the cake - yet. And they may never become the cake if we don't sort them out from the pickles and salad ingredients waiting on the same counter to be put away. That's a picture of our brainstormed goals. You see, without refining our dreams, we risk combining the wrong ingredients and making something that doesn't even resemble a cake. We need to put away the things on the counter that do not belong in our cake. That's what we do when we refine our goals.

Last week we brainstormed our goals and gave ourselves permission to dream big. That was fun! Now let's look at reality. Now I'm the last person to put a pin in anyone's balloon. I happen to think that, if anything, most of us need a boost in the direction of self confidence. However, I've also noticed writers can have more dreams than they'll ever be able to fulfill in a single lifetime. We need to sift through those dreams and find the ones that will help us fulfill our purposes. We must pick and choose in order to make tangible goals we can turn into successful "cakes."

Here are some earmarks of a dream that is a good candidate to become a refined goal:

• It lines up with my life's purposes. (Toss out all time wasters.)
  
• It is something I can actually do or learn to do.. (Careful - you don't want to limit yourself unduly)
• I have the resources to fulfill this dream. (Ditto - see above.)
• This dream is worthy of the investment of time and self it will require.
• My spouse will at least tolerate my pursuit of this dream. (Full support would be better.)
• This dream will not destroy my family relationships. (It's okay sometimes to stretch those relationships.)
• It won't violate my conscience, my spiritual convictions or my person in any way.
• I feel a passion I can't ignore for fulfilling this dream.
• This dream will make a mark, no matter how small, in eternity.

Homework

This week let's take our brainstormed goals and determine which are the ingredients for our "cake." Don't do this without prayer for discernment. I'll meet you back here next week to deal with matters of balance and timing so we can develop the recipe by which we'll build our platforms and fulfill our goals. Oh yeah, and please leave a comment. You never know when someone else may need to hear what you have to say.

 Note: the "Link Within" buttons below lead to older posts that may interest you.

Never Too Late

I was in Utah, serving the Lord and the U.S. Air Force at Hill Air Force Base. The chaplain of the base, a friend and encourager in my life, asked me to fill in for him at a rescue mission in the city of Ogden. It was my first time to preach a sermon in front of a live audience. I had led Bible studies, shared my testimony and generally spent some time in a variety of “public” ministries, but never had I preached in front of an actual gathering of people. I was young (far younger than I am now).

When I arrived at the mission I encountered a man who, to see him, looked like one of those wizened prophets from a movie like The Ten Commandments. He sat in a small, constricted cubicle, little more than a closet with a desk and chair. The grey-haired man poured over the Bible as if the words might fall off the page lest he read it. I watched his shriveled fingers work a pen on paper and his head move back and forth as he studied.

In the crowded room, as other men ate the meager meal, the mission director approached me. He had noticed my interest in the old man and placed his hand on my shoulder.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“An old man, studying,” I said, curious as to the obvious nature of the question.

“Why don’t you go and talk with him.” So, at his encouragement, I entered the small chamber and stood over the desk. The man looked up. His wrinkled eyes smiled and he offered a bearded, toothless grin.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

My curiosity was in full vigor but I simply asked, “What are you doing?”

“Preparing for the ministry… God’s called me to preach!” His enthusiasm rumbled in his graveled voice.

I left that night, but returned week after week to help the work of the mission. Each night he was there, alone in his hole, eyes fixed on the Bible. He was an oddity to me, a sixty-two year old man who lived on the streets most of his life and didn’t fit the picture of a man behind a pulpit. Then one day he was gone.

To make a long story short, I asked the director and he told me what happened. Several weeks prior to his absence, the old man sent his information to a small church near Chicago. God opened a door for that man and, at the spry age of sixty-two, he took on his first pastorate.

It’s never too late. God calls a man who is eighty to take a nation and lead them to a promised land. God calls a man who is one-hundred and gives him and his ninety-year-old wife a son. God calls a man who is five-hundred to build a boat—a boat that won’t be finished for one-hundred and twenty years.

A good friend of mine struggles with the idea that it is too late for him. He wonders if, perhaps, opportunity has passed him by and all that is left is to wait for the end. What I discovered from God’s word is that there is no such thing as an expiration date when it comes to serving the Lord—except when God says that your time on this earth is over.

In Ezekiel 37:11 it says, “Then he said to me: ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.”’” There are many who feel this way. You might feel this way, I know I have. You might feel as if your time is up, that you are dried bones with no life left to give. Or you might think that the hope of accomplishing any ambitious goal for the Lord has vanished like mist off a meadow. You might even believe God Himself has abandoned you and that you are cut off from all opportunity.

You need to read verse 12: “Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.’” You might think that death is the final loss of opportunity—except for Lazarus, Tabitha, that fellow who fell on Elisha’s bones, all those who escaped their graves at the death of the Lord Jesus, a young man who fell out a window, and the list goes on. God can and does work restoration for His people. Not even death can thwart the plans of God.

Have you struggled with the notion that you’re work is shelved? It’s not. The delay that you sense, the struggle that you have with the idea that you’re time has passed, is not from God. Even if you think that you have wasted precious moments and squandered opportunities, you must believe that the chance for momentum is not beyond your reach. Oswald Chambers died at the age of forty-two and yet his words are read around the world. Rich Mullins died in a tragic car accident and yet his songs are still sung.

Your call to write is not about just this moment. It has the potential to reach far beyond you but you have a choice to make. Will you wallow in the mire of self-doubt or rise up and lay claim to your calling from God. Don’t dwell on how much time has passed, focus on how much time is left and use it for the glory of the Lord.

©2009
Rev. Michael Duncan

Ways to Find Your Goals (or Telling Dolphins from Sharks)

I eyed the waves, which churned against the pale sand. The Indian Ocean, normally a translucent turquoise, looked murky today, here on Australia's Northwest Cape in the wake of a tropical cyclone.

I dug my toes in the sand. "Maybe not."

But, in the end, a friend persuaded me to enter those turbulant waters, mask and snorkel strapped to my head and fins on my feet. He gave me a reassuring smile. "You'll love it."

I stretched out in the water and took my lesson. Relax. Just remember to blow out before you breathe. The water held me and I floated, bouyant. This wasn't so bad, after all. My heart rate slowed to just above normal.  My friend moved back to shore. I dared to open my eyes behind the mask and gave an experimental kick.

A huge silver-blue fish with a dark eye sidled by within touching distance. A shark! I just stopped myself from breathing water. Blow out before you breathe. I fought to my feet and fell in the crashing surf. Water poured over me. Hands grasped my arms and hauled me from the water, landing me like a gasping fish on the shore.

My friend laughed at my panic. "It was only a dolphin wanting to make friends."

I felt foolish. Perhaps if I had not nursed a hidden fear of meeting a shark or if the dolphin hadn't been so close, I'd have recognized it for what it was.

Learning to identify my goals sometimes reminds me of my experience with the dolphin. If they loom too close, I can mistake my goals for something they're not and retreat from them, missing the fact that they're friendly and want me to "play."

Marlene Anderson is still on hiatus with family concerns, so I'm filling in for her today. Actually, I'm glad for a chance to add a little to my post of Tuesday (here), in which I assigned the "homework" of brainstorming goals drawn from the life purposes we've already identified (here).

So far in our platform-building discussion, we've dwelt on abstracts such as attitude and mindset. Knowing your life purposes is one thing. Pinning them down to concrete, tangible goals can be quite another. Remember to step back a little to get the full picture. You might be a little too close to recognize your goals for what they are. Remember to relax. This can be fun. Here are some telltale signs that an idea might be a dolphin and not a shark:

•  It's something you're doing already because you have to. Perhaps you burn with fire for the children's ministry in which you volunteer. Maybe you lead a women's Bible study or stand in the doorway and greet newcomers at church. Perhaps you should you write for children, for teens, or for women. 
  
• Whatever you do as naturally as you breathe probably belongs in some form in your writing goals. As a child, I was the neighborhood story teller. The other children would group around me late in the day and beg me for stories. Today I write fiction.
• You're a little jealous about someone else's accomplishments in a certain area. This might be an indicator that you are called to do something similar. Ask yourself why else you would care?
  
• You argue with God about doing something. Here's a surefire sign. I can remember sitting in church explaining to God all the different reasons I had for not joining the choir when the woman in front of me turned around after the service. "You should join the choir." she told me. That put an end to my arguments. I joined the choir.
• You get angry about something happening in our culture or feel concerned about a gap you see that needs to be filled. You feel "someone" should do something about it. That "someone" may be you.
• You're afraid to dream about doing a certain thing in life (such as speaking or writing a best seller). Again, if you're not called to do it and no one's pressuring you, why would you care?
• You know you will be disappointed at the end of your life if you haven't done (fill in the blank) or accomplished (fill in the blank) or given (fill in the blank).
• Other people respond to you as if you're already doing this. Those of us called to lead will recognize this one. Whenever there's a crisis people look to me to tell them what to do, even when they are strangers. This extends beyond leadership to other areas of gifting as well. Our gifts do make themselves known. Find clues in what others tell you, but only if what they say chimes with you.
  
• You can't get an idea off your mind. Often I've found this to be the "small, still voice" of God.

This list is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather to get you thinking about your own ways to recognize the goals you should strive for. Spending time in prayer is an essential part of finding your way, of telling the dolphins from the sharks.

Platform Building 104: Brainstorm Your Goals

My Mark

by

Janalyn Voigt

I've never met them,

These silent strangers.

They are to me but

A name on a stone -

Or no name at all,

Just a depression,

A mound in the earth,

Unmarked.

They lived before me

In a younger world -

Real people sighing

Through life

Before I took on

Flesh and breath -

Gone now,

Unremarked.

It doesn't seem fair.

They might never

Have existed at all -

For good or ill,

It all ended here,

On this windy hill -

Forlorn,

Forgotten.

I cannot know them,

I who am living.

God alone has

Decided their fate.

I walk from the place

And leave them behind.

I must make a mark

Not written on stone.

I once attended the funeral of Marian, a dear woman who befriended me at a low point in my life. As one of the choir she'd requested to sing at her service, I sat on the platform looking out over those who came to honor Marian's memory. Through my tears, I couldn't help but smile, for so large a crowd gathered that there were those who wound up having to stand in the back of the church. Later, a microphone made its rounds as many told how Marian had touched them with her life. A thought struck me then. Who would come to my funeral because they couldn't keep away? Who would testify of my impact on their lives? Who? I'd never given thought to such questions. Now they were all I could think about.

In her death, Marian showed me how to live.

Obscurity. We all fear it. We want to matter, to make a difference with our lives - to make our mark. Here's the good news - God wants just that for us too. It's simply a matter of identifying what that mark will be. If we seek Him, He will show us our purposes. Once we identify how we will make our mark, we then need to bring it all home, out of the abstract and into the practical.

Homework

This week brainstorm and set your writing goals, drawing them from your purposes in life. How will you support those writing goals and enable them to reach others? Don't feel like you have to know everything all at once. Just start with what you do know to do and the rest will follow. For now, ignore that inner voice that tells you what you can't do. Don't look at your limitations right now. Remember, brainstorming your goals is only the first step. Next week we'll review the process of goal setting and measure our goals against reality, but first we get to dream big.

The Path of Possibility

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." 
Theodore Roosevelt

Great ideas do not require all the money in the world, all the time in the world or all of the talent in the world. A truly great idea requires some inspiration, some determination and a whole lot of persistence.


Over twenty years ago I sent in my first fiction story to a teen magazine. I knew nothing of queries or contacting publishers. I just made a copy of my typed manuscript and sent it in. The response letter asked for my information, including my parent’s signature if I was under 18 years old, but I took it as a rejection. I chose to see a rejection and let my vision hinder my pursuit of passion.


Five years ago I rediscovered my passion for writing. I started writing forum posts and was enjoying the challenge of writing about things that I knew nothing about originally. Even the dial-up that I was using did not slow me down. My first big gig was a regular column in the local paper. Then I found out I was pregnant with our third child and I let my difficulties dictate my attitude.


Two years ago I bit down and paid to have cable run to our home so that I would have high-speed internet. I wanted to expand my online writing presence and opportunities. That same year my husband (whose income was our only steady income) left his permanent position and dropped the responsibility of provision in my lap. I allowed the check to drive my content and forgot about my heart and purpose.


Several months ago I heard a speaker talk about platform and building a firm foundation of readers. I rediscovered my passion, changed my attitude and began to pursue my passion for writing with boldness.


It is not easy. Finding passion can be a challenge because the world dictates reality. As a writer and a Christian I have to look beyond reality into possibility. That possibility is built up by the good, the positive and the uplifting things that I feed into my heart and mind. Only when I walk that positive path into possibility will I begin to find my purpose.


What are the issues holding you back from pursuing your dreams? And what are you going to do right now to step over those issues and pursue your dreams anyway?

(Kathryn Lang fills in here for Marlene Anderson, while Marlene deals with a family emergency.)

Kathryn Lang is an inspirational writer and speaker sharing her thoughts on finding passion and pursuing purpose with boldness. She currently offers online presentations and keynotes speeches to a variety of groups. She also writes online and in print on a wide range of subjects. You can contact Kathryn Lang through her website or read more of her inspirational thoughts on life at Proverbs 31 Living and writing at Successful Freelance Writer.  


 

Platform Building 103: Marshal Your Time

Everyone knows it takes time to build a small business. Writing, when pursued on a professional level, is no different.  It requires time to learn and perfect the craft of writing; and it takes time to pursue publication, create a platform, advertise and deal with mundane tasks.

I've heard many writers moan they don't have time to write, let alone to make an actual business of a writing passion. That may be an actual reality for some, but sometimes I think they are saying they don't want to invest the time. If that's you, you'll want to make sure you're actually called to write in the first place.

You may feel called but find yourself in a season of rest from writing. In that case, it's a good idea to set a date with yourself to see where you are in six months, a year, or whatever time frame seems right. Just don't get too comfortable for too long. ;o)

Sometimes other responsibilities, specifically family ones, can take priority for a time. If that's the case, you can save yourself and your loved ones frustration by recognizing and accepting reality. Again, set a date with yourself at a specified time in the future to reevaluate your priorities.

However, if you are called to write, and called to write now, but life is holding you back, you may need to review your commitments under the lens of godly priorities and make some tough choices. Before making any life-changing decisions, however, you should look for agreement from your spouse, feedback from your family, and the advice of several wise people you trust. We all need the leveling influence of others.

The above advice applies to the truly time-pressed. And then there's the rest of us. We may have tight schedules and think we don't have enough time to tend the business of writing. Often we don't connect our niggling guilt about time spent playing computer games, talking on the phone, watching television or engaging in other such time wasters. We create, at least in part, our own time crunch.

Here's where the rubber meets the road, the bait gets cut, the die is cast. We get to choose what we do. An Evangelist, in a meeting I attended, asked his audience to repeat: "I win or lose by the way I choose." By the time his sermon ended, those words were engraved upon my mind. I pass them on to you now. We win or lose by the way we choose. Be a winner.

Last week I gave the homework of identifying time wasters and discovering the motives and causes for them. It sometimes takes time to change behaviors, but we can choose today to move in the right direction. But we don't need to have that step perfected before moving on to the next step: finding ways to save time. I won't go into specific methods here, as that thread will run through my upcoming posts in detail. We want to be careful about expecting too much change too fast. We run the risk of overwhelming ourselves that way, and Mount Platform already looks pretty intimidating. So, lets go slow and easy as we work to marshall our time for the business of writing.

Homework

Set a few minutes each week to brainstorm areas of inefficiency in your schedule. Examine your expectations. Are they realistic, given the demands on your time? How much time can you free to achieve your goals? Compare notes with others and do a little research, if you can. We're looking for ways to cut corners, combine or eliminate tasks, and delegate chores.

Next week we'll identify and establish writing goals from which we'll extract a platform. It will help to have an idea of how much time you'll be able to put into both your goals and platform building.

Introducing Michael Duncan

I'm delighted to announce another co-blogger, Pastor and Writer Michael Duncan. I think you'll enjoy both his appreciation for beauty and wonder and his offbeat sense of humor. Watch for Michael's posts on alternate Saturdays. Welcome, Michael. (I'll pass the microphone now and let you say hello.)

Greetings, my name is Michael Duncan. I am the pastor of Mountain View Baptist Church in Darrington, WA. I’ve been married for over 16 years to my wonderful wife, Patty, and enjoy raising our three children, James (15), Joseph (11) and Joanna (10). I am a member of the Christian Writer’s Guild and the Northwest Christian Writer’s Association, and author of the blog: From The Mountain. I believe that there is power in the written word, and I encourage anyone who aspires to write for the Lord.

Life in the Fast Track

Tires hit hard on the tarmac as Flight 460 lands at LAX, gradually slowing as it turns toward its assigned gate.  Debarking, I become part of the melee of jostling people hurrying to grab their luggage off the carousal. Re-positioning my shoulder bag, I hurry to join the fray at the curb jostling to hail a cab.  Welcome to Los Angeles – the city of angels – and life in the fast track.

But there is another fast track few are aware of and no one wants to encounter. It isn’t the race track or the board room of high stakes businesses, but the ambulance entrance to the ER.  This Fast Track gets fast attention from the medical staff. 

My unplanned flight brings me into the world of hospitals, Ct Scans and an unwanted diagnosis. Within 24 hours my days shift from their usual routine to a stint spent sitting beside the hospital bed of my son well into the night.  His flu-like symptoms turn without warning into something more sinister – cancer. I call upon my reserves of patience as the Fast Track gives way to the slow, methodical world of testing and waiting.

After a few days his condition stabilizes, and I bring out my laptop. I catch up on emails. My thoughts turn to my writing assignment for this blog and I ask myself, “Am I ready to write? Is this the time or the place?”  And yet writing has become a compulsion as well as a therapy. I can always find time within a day to write, and doing so gives voice and expression to my experiences.  Writing now has became more than a project – it is a way of life.

What about you? Why not consider your day's work as more than taking your son to soccer practice, working eight hours, or any of the million-and-one things that demand attention? Carry a pad of paper and a pencil with you wherever you go so, when ideas come, you are ready to write them down. Then in a quiet, scheduled time, you can begin to develop them.

Busy schedules do not preclude writing.  Writers write because it is what we do.  Even if you are a beginner, writing is part of who you are and what you are destined to do.  It doesn’t replace family, work or life.  It is a vital part of it. Understanding and embracing this fact will put your writing on another kind of fast track. 


~ by Marlene Anderson

Platform Building 102: Arrest Time Thieves

Note to self: Time is not my enemy. It's not out to get me. It's not something I need to beat. It's not in competition with my goals. Time is my friend.

As we move from defining our life purposes toward drawing goals from those purposes, it's important to take stock of the tools at our disposal. Time is just that: a tool. It will help us if we treat it right. It will work against us if we do not.

In preparation for this post, I asked a group of writers to help identify what disrupts, interrupts and otherwise wastes their time as writers. Here are the results, in no particular order:

• Online games
• Obsessive social networking
• Daydreaming
• The Internet
• Excessive researching
• Facebook activities (games, surfing friend's pages and chatting)
• Excessive reading of blogs
• Household chores
• Texting
• Writer forums
• Children
• Pets
• Husbands
• Phone calls
  
• Errands
• Computer and technical problems
• Stress
• Tiredness
• Television
  

Perhaps you can identify with some of these time wasters and even add to the list. I know I can. When approaching this subject, I thought I would offer tips to optimize time and minimize waste but the solutions are both more difficult and more simple. Solutions lie in finding and curing underlying causes and in addressing our behavior.

We need to look with clarity to find underlying causes. There's a difference between wasting and spending time. Successful time management is all about balance. Balance isn't easy to maintain - ask a tightrope walker. But then, that's another post.

Sometimes routine duties like household chores and even family relationships can demand more than their share of our time, but we need to be careful here. Writing, as a passion, can consume time and attention that rightfully belongs elsewhere. Writing, as ministry and/or occupation, should fall below family relationships in our priorities. If, after examining your heart you believe others are genuinely wasting your time, then you will want to establish healthy boundaries. There's a book that may help you by that name: Boundaries.

Things aren't always what they seem. For instance, depression can masquerade as tiredness. If your days are passing in an uninspiring sameness and you can't summon the energy to face one more Holiday Season (for instance), see if you can find the root cause(s) of your doldrums and give your burden to the Lord. Seek help if you can't pull out of it on your own. Tell someone you trust what's going on with you. It can take courage, will power and God's help to pull out of a depression. It also takes time. Give yourself grace while you recover.

If you're caught up in too much social networking, you might need to develop some satisfying relationships in real life. Yes, these also take time but make for a full life, if you keep the concept of balance in mind. Excessive social networking, television viewing, engaging in online games and the like might simply provide ways for you to procrastinate. Try to find the source of your procrastination. You might have feelings of inadequacy and are afraid to test your self esteem by completing your writing. Maybe you've taken a wrong turn in your plot and don't know how to proceed. Identifying your motivators is the first step to changing life for the better.

Daydreaming can fall into the category of procrastination but it also can be the voice of inspiration. If you can find no motive for procrastination within yourself, perhaps you should embrace these interruptions and sometimes let them lead you. Turn off your inner censor and just listen. Take notes.

Some things, like computer and technical problems, lie beyond your control. I confess that, being a creature of habit, I can find myself disoriented when my computer stalls or my email glitches. I've learned that if I accept the things I can't control, I can reformat my day and move on. Maintaining my emotional balance helps me balance even a disrupted day.

Knowing and confronting your motives will free you to arrest time thieves because you won't have to fight a powerful adversary - yourself - to do so. The next step to affecting lasting change is addressing the behavior, especially since habit is involved. Be patient. Habits take time to form, and they take time to break. You will have greater success if you substitute a positive behavior for a negative one. Ask yourself: What am I getting out of playing Facebook games? If the answer is a reward for hard work, maybe you can substitute a set limit for unlimited play time. Or, if that doesn't work, try reading a chapter in a book you've been wanting to get to instead. It might be hard to break away from the computer the first couple of times, but soon you'll look forward to reading instead.

Change your motivators as well. Reminding yourself each day of God's purposes for your life will bring your goals into sharp focus. When you embrace your purposes fully, there's just no room for your arms to hold onto anything else. I'm not talking, here, about rigidity but rather genuine desire for God's will to shape our lives. Developing this desire takes time, prayer and self-discipline, but will move you toward true success.

 Homework

Identify the time thieves in your life.

Examine your motives for allowing these time thieves to steal your time.

Set limits where needed.

Stop non-productive activities. Replace them with activities that support your life purposes.

Practically Creative

Do you feel like you’re just spinning your wheels? Wasting time? Do you sense that your writing is little more than an exercise in futility? You’re not alone. One of the greatest struggles with any creative endeavor is finding the will to continue.

Growing up, I was raised by a father who, perhaps, was the most practical man on the planet. He possessed a great skill with words, both speaking and writing, and yet he pursued a career that held no outlet for his wealth of creativity. I asked him, once, why he never became a writer, since his talent was so readily obvious. His answer stood me on my proverbial head.

“Son,” he said, “a real man doesn’t chase after stupid dreams.”

With that thought neatly tucked away in my subconscious I spent the next thirty years fighting a war between the practical and the passionate.

Don’t misunderstand; my dad was a great provider for the family and a hard worker. But I noticed he had dreams that died in silent pain. Thirty years after that comment I found that I also languished in the silent pain of dying dreams. The iron words of my father hammered against my soul and beat down the nearly vanquished dream of becoming… well… of becoming more than a mindless robot only doing what was necessary for survival. I feared my dreams were about to die.

God, however, entered the battle between the practical and the passionate. He opened my eyes to understand that He was creative and loved creativity. Consider this: for all the practical realities that exist in the world (gravity, air, etc.), God still made the platypus. If that’s not creative, nothing is!

God is creative, wonderfully creative, and we are made in His image. Every night God paints the sky in crimson and orange. Every autumn God transforms the lush green into dazzling gold. Why? Scientists will tell you their perfunctory reasons, but I believe it is because God loves to express Himself in His creation. Expressing creativity is, in every sense, an aspect of the Divine heritage.

So, let me encourage you. There really is no war between the practical and the passionate. Both exist in God and must exist in you. As you write, you’re not simply spinning your wheels and accomplishing nothing. When God looked upon His creation and said it was “very good” it included the platypus. It doesn’t matter if there is any practical purpose to it, when God looks at your faithfulness expressed through the gifts He gave you, He says the same thing: “very good.”

Your creativity must be set—even locked in—for the glory of God. No other reason is relevant to Him. Even as Scripture says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men” (Colossians 3:23). When it is set for God’s glory, don’t worry about the practical aspects of it. I may never become a published author—it doesn’t mean I give up trying. I keep writing, creating, striving to hone my gifts so that God will be glorified in my efforts. That, alone, should be sufficient for any Christian.

©2009
Rev. Michael Duncan