Re-ordering

This week seemed to be empty and yet I'm busy. Tidying up and organizing and trying desperately to have a system to complete things. I gave up and recognized I still have continuous partial attention issues (read original posting here) I've noticed that as soon as I open my email account I forget the things I needed to do or get done. Now I realized I need find a way of keeping some focus. Its like my going to the kitchen and not remembering why I went there so opening the fridge and looking inside became my reflex action.

Well after some thinking I needed a to-do-list. OK I hear you say get a piece of paper and a pencil. I tried that and using my daytimer and it doesn't work for me anymore. I realized I couldn't use ical on my Mac because I didn't want to entries to be date dependent, but I still wanted it loaded into my ipod. Some research and examining and trying out a few different programs, I have decided on a program called Checkoff. It's simple and sits in the menu bar but can be locked open. You can color code items and group them and it syncs with an ipod seamlessly. As I have an idea or a spare moment I jump and update it. Here I also consolidated my email accounts and tidied up my inbox and removed confusing email addresses and made sure I got rid of out of date stuff.

I've also returned to one of my internet devotion sites to bring more focus. It's a Catholic Jesuit site with a very helpful guided meditation each day. (here if you're interested). It's grounded in a gospel meditation reflecting about what God has to say to us out of the passage.

Also I've been examining the practice of the novena, which is a focused 9 days of prayer for a specific grace from God. It seems again a very helpful practice to bring focus to my life. Unfortunately there are many novenas to Mary and saints which are unacceptable theologically for me but I've found a very helpful one to the Holy Spirit. (here)

Now I have to continue the discipline of washing dishes and clothes and trying to start to practice the cello everyday. I have started emptying the fridge of out of date and other stuff especially stuff from before Christmas. And yet I have met up with students and pastors and had significant conversations and written a short guide to why blogs are helpful and important. And now I am finding peace again, shalom and I feel that I am functioning as I should with a greater sense of God.