The Daily Saint

A Career Without a Calling

I'm currently reading Leading With Soul: An Uncommon Journey of the Spirit and it's another confirmation that work and spiritual values go hand in hand. 

Separate the two and we are left with career without calling. 

Have you brought your spiritual self to work today? 

Luck, God's Will and Success at Work

Since I first discovered Seth Godin (thanks for the tip Gene Monterastelli) two years ago, I was immediately impressed.  He posts every day, his material is to the point and I learn things- not a bad trifecta!

This post deals with the role that old fashioned luck has in one's career success.  Many readers of The Daily Saint will write to me with something like this, "Mike, what about God's will in my seemingly mundane job?  When will my big break come?"  As if it's either luck or God's will that makes someone a smashing success!  Maybe it's both.

The big break...sometimes it's not so much a big break as it is a string of medium sized successes.  The art, of course, is seeing the good things along the way.  I spoke with a gentleman last night who works in HVAC.  It's not his dream job but it pays the bills.  The art, once again, is finding value in work that is predominantly "bill pay material". 

So can you have good luck, from a faith based perspective?  I'm not really sure but I do know that honing the skill of making good decisions is a must.  As Seth Godin says:

Either you believe that luck is dominant, in which case, why bother with effort?
or
You believe that luck is random, in which case it can be eliminated from your thinking and you can focus on all the stuff you can control.

A Year ago on The Daily Saint: Free Download

Devoted readers of TDS will remember that I used to provide weekly downloads.  Since it's Friday, I dug into the vault and retrieved this post from a year ago.  (ok, not exactly a year ago but it works just as well)

Read Surefire Ways to Live Out Your Mission Statement

Introducing The Daily Saint Podcast!

I’m pleased to announce the very first Daily Saint Podcast!  This week I look at one productivity tool and one bit of encouragement for the week ahead.  Enjoy and let me know what you think! 

Click here for the podcast.

Today's Tip: Declutter the Home Office in Less Than One Hour

Today's post is from Lisa Hendey of Productivity at Home

One day last summer, I caught myself in Barnes and Noble with a book in my hand about de-cluttering. I was making my way to the checkout line to purchase it when the irony of the situation struck me. In my case, much of the clutter in my life is owing to the fact that I review books for my sites and have them coming out my ears. Adding another book to the mix was not the answer...

But today, RealSimple.com has a great post about home organizing books. I plan to put these on my wish list at the library and try to glean whatever pearls of wisdom they hold. I listen regularly to Peter Walsh's show on XM radio, so that one is at the top of my list and of course David Allen's "Getting Things Done" is already one of my favorites. Also, many of the precepts in these books can be found on the web. The trick is starting small and implementing steps every day to better organize our homes.

This week, I undertook a major reorganization of my office. It was precipitated by the fact that a TV crew was coming to film in my home office. I didn't want my "stacks" memorialized on film, so I got to work. In the process, I did some major decluttering. While I'm not completely finished with this project, my work environment feels much more productive and it inspires me to take on some other projects around my home.

A few tips for taking on this type of home organization project:

1. Set aside time - Take on a home organization project when your schedule will permit you several hours of uninterrupted time. Nothing is worse than getting started and then never finishing - you end up with a worse situation than when you started.
2. Choose one area of your home to start - Mine was my home office, for obvious reasons. Choose a small, manageable space. Complete your work in that area before moving on to the next.
3. Take photos - I wish I had taken "before" photos, but my "after documentation of what my office CAN look like will serve as motivation next time it gets totally out of control.
4. Think things through before you get started - One area of my office that was particularly driving me crazy was my Podcasting "studio". Wires everywhere and no apparent organization made me crazy every week when I sat down to record. That area is now very well laid out, but it required some pre-planning to lay out all of the cords, phone lines and equipment in a small, compact space.
5. Celebrate your success - My husband and I have a tradition that involves giving one another feedback when a home project is tackled. He came into my office after the re-org and raved about how great things looked. I do the same for him when he fixes a broken sprinkler or tackles something equally as tedious. It's good to have someone appreciate that hard work that goes into making a home run well.

GTD Insight: How Next Action Thinking Can Fill a Leadership Void

If you haven't caught up with Leadership Journal in a while, their recent edition focuses on teams and how they lead.  I was especially fascinated by an article about how one church went from a one pastor model to a team approach of four men who lead together.

Can you imagine if every church was led by four instead of one?  Blows your mind doesn't it?

The featured church, Next Level Church in Denver, explained how their model allows for deeper service, more humility, greater accountability and a healthy buffer in case one leader falls. It also allows for a community to get things done.  Maybe, just maybe, it decreases the amount of 'leadership complaining'.

All of us complain about our leaders.  I just wish they would do more of this... Why can't he be more like... It drives me crazy when... When you practice GTD, you are putting next-action thinking into play.  You stop looking around and wondering why it isn't moving fast enough and

you
    start
       making it happen.

This of course builds you up as someone who actually produces results.  You are then able to do the work of four instead of one.

Forget About Strategic Planning

How many people do you know that spend more time planning than doing?  Status reports, benchmarks and meetings can get in the way of old-fashioned doing. 

I'm not really advocating that we abandon effective strategic planning, but sometimes a next-action step is all that is needed.  Case in point- I gave a talk last night to a group of students and their families on the value of Catholic education.  Having given hundreds of talks, I normally prepare a rough outline and then let it happen, relying on instincts and experience.  On this particular night though, I prepared an overly detailed spec of the evening's topic. 

Too detailed.

I was overly concerned with not forgetting an item on my overly detailed outline and therefore delivered an A-minus talk instead of a homerun.  I would imagine that the audience knew nothing of my consternation but I went home and evaluated my preparation and follow through. 

What's a GTD take on strategic planning?  It's not a matter of take-it-or-leave-it.  Rather, it's about integrating next actions with the benchmarks and stages of a good plan.

How to be Ridiculously Impressive

Yesterday the National Basketball Association announced its All NBA teams.  For those of you who don't follow pro basketball, this news comes to us as a way to highlight the top 15 basketball players on the planet. 

Here's how it works: first teamers are the absolute best, second teamers are slightly less amazing and third teamers ... you get the picture.  Making the list is one of my favorites, Manu Ginobili.  Ginobili is regarded as one of the best all around players but what makes him unique is something else.

He plays fewer minutes than any of the other 14 All NBA players and even more ridiculous, he doesn't start a single game.

It's not always who is on the floor to start the game.  It's who finishes that matters.  In you workplace, are you a finisher?  Can the boss count on you to stay late or lock up?  Here's to you Manu.

How Do You Organize Your Inspiration?

Photo by Muffet

Today's post is from a handout from a talk that I gave this past weekend called, "Developing a Keynote Address: How to Organize Your Inspiration".

"Peace is the tranquility of order." St. Augustine

Capturing Your Ideas
Have a notebook handy wherever you are.  This can be as simple as a magnetic pad on your fridge (to recall what you need as your kitchen gets empty) to a 50cent notepad for your coat pocket.  You never know when a great idea will strike and give up on the idea of “remembering it later”. Get ideas out of your head- if you don't they'll come back and you'll wonder why you haven't done anything with them.  As David Allen says, "Your head's for having ideas, not for holding them."  If you think it, ink it.

Keeping Your Ideas
Maintaining lists of anything that you want to reference later is a sign of an active mind.  Here is where you've taken your seemingly random "capture anytime" ideas and put them into a system of lists.  Lists might include:

• Great Saint quotes
• Talks I'd like to give
• Questions I'd like to ask the Pope
• Pilgrimage locations I'd like to visit
• Books I'd like to read
• Next time at Home Depot
• Places to visit in San Diego
• Coffee flavors to avoid
• Blog post ideas
• Blood pressure readings

Activating Your Ideas
When you can take your ideas and put them into motion you are making progress.  This might be an idea that you captured on the back of a knapkin or something more formally on a list. This of course does not happen all at once.  It takes practice to move from idea to action.  How do you do it?  By visiting your lists on a regular basis and sitting with them, you can make tremendous progress in life.  When it comes to giving a talk, getting from list to presentation is an art-form.  Gather your ideas, write down some thoughts, then let your outline percolate for a few days. Revisit it and then put on your next addition.  A great talk will look like a home that has had a competent architect working behind the scenes: it looks and feels right, accomplishing everything that the home owner had in mind.  Others will feel at home with your message- now that’s hospitality.

What if Your Best Still Isn't Enough?

You have the education.  Your resume is impressive as the day is long.  The passion is still there.  You still arrive early and stay late.  Your planner is rough around the edges due to its use.  You've still got your edge and you could work in any number of competing organizations.

But what if it's still not good enough?

What if the community that you're currently in doesn't get it and thinks that you're kind of ordinary?  Worse yet, what if they are taking you for granted, thinking that you're a lifer?

Your 'best', while still impressive to some, has lost its luster.  The honeymoon is over and you see the warts around every corner.  You have three choices:

• Stay and be miserable.
• Stay, dig in and look beyond the 'now'.
• Leave.

The choice you make is of course a reflection of yourself.  Better do some power reflecting and get away in solitude.  It's the best that you can do.