Giving this another go this week. Some spare thoughts from the last two weeks of blog posts. Here are 3 Things for this week:

1. Switching Costs – Cal Newport introduced me to the term “context switching” as a guest on a podcast I listened to a couple of years ago. The premise is that there is a cost to constantly switching back and forth between tasks and activities, which ultimately prevents us from getting to “deep work”. Every time we check our email or social media in the midst of something else, there is a reset period when trying to get back into the work. I am very much a work-in-progress in this area, but when I am at my best I allow for some transition time between tasks. This also applies when I am transitioning from work to home. A very helpful tool that I love is the One Minute Pause App, from John Eldredge. It starts at one minute, but there are other variations that are well worth checking out.

2. Indoor Living – North Americans spend an estimated 90% of our time indoors. When I heard this recently, I immediately thought there was no way I was part of this statistic. I think of myself as an active person, and I love being outside. I find a walk in the trees can be extremely restorative. I decided to review a recent week and estimate how much time I actually spent outside. Weekends are generally pretty good – if we aren’t at a sports field for a few hours, we like to go for walks and hikes as a family. Weekdays, however, were another story. Upon review, there have been days recently when my outdoor time consists of the fifteen foot walk from my front door to my car in the morning and then the same walk back at the end of the work day. 30 feet. The lesson for me is that I need to fight for that time and schedule it in like any other important event in my day.

3. Fear of Greatness – My last two posts, The Men’s Retreat and Back to the Well, have focused on a life changing retreat I went on in 2018. Prior to going, I think I probably knew deep down that there might be more that I was being called to than what I was experiencing, but I was hesitant to make that step. I suspect that lingering feeling exists for most of us. But when things are going at least reasonably well, it feels risky to put it on the line and step into something unknown, even if we think it could be better. For me, it was a scary thing to step into, but looking back I am glad I did.

That’s it for this week. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Until Next Time,

Sean

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