I have promised myself nearly 50 times this year that I’m going to start exercising. Day one and two is great. I create an energizing new playlist and hop on my elliptical machine. Then, something comes up and I get busy or simply forget. A few days later, I can easily see a thin layer of dust forming on my machine.
How often do we have an interest in something, but then a few weeks…or days or minutes…later, we forget about that interest?
Our culture has given us the ability to be interested in so many things. Twitter and Facebook are prime social media outlets that provide us with new fads to “Like.” Our friends can suggest businesses, TV shows, or events to us. Facebook ads detect the subjects we discuss on our pages or write in our information sections and point advertising straight to us to provide further distraction.
So, how do I keep my priorities in line?
Here are the top three things that have my attention and how I keep them in the front of my mind.
Bible.
I have always been exposed to the Bible, but it was not until I got married that I truly began to feel a need for it. I realized that I couldn’t live life on my own – I needed God in it. I started reading God’s Word to help me make sense of the world I was in. What better thing to have my attention than the reason I am here? Pouring myself into the Bible allows the Bible to pour out of me.
However, I don’t just pick up my 3000 page book and read.
I follow numerous Twitter accounts that deliver verses throughout the day. By using one of the things that distract me, I am able to still keep my interests up front and center. Check out the list of who I follow.
I also attend church every Sunday, in addition to going to daily mass as often as possible.
The more things that can keep me in front of the Word, the less likely I will be to get distracted. I have developed a habit and now feel lost without it. This process can be done with nearly anything important in your life. I do plan to attempt to make this happen for exercising, but I’ll share that challenge in a later post.
Leadership.
As someone who has an MBA, I thought work was all about “my title.” I would go out and seek a job that proved I knew what I was doing – a job that put me in management. My second job after earning my degree showed me that management is not key; leadership is everything. One of my favorite leadership gurus is John Maxwell. When I was first introduced to John’s books, here are some of the best things I learned from him:
“Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.”
“Most people who want to get ahead do it backward. They think, ‘I’ll get a bigger job, then I’ll learn how to be a leader.’ But showing leadership skill is how you get the bigger job in the first place. Leadership isn’t a position, it’s a process.”
Had I known some of his teachings during my graduate program, I would have approached my studies in a completely different way.
I now follow leaders like John Maxwell and Michael Hyatt through email subscriptions and RSS feeds to keep me informed of important leadership topics and trends. Sometimes businesses can fill our inbox with junk, but both John and Michael understand that their readers are not looking for information overload and only provide information once a day. They don’t take advantage of my subscription and send me useless information – they send me exactly what I signed up for.
Writing.
Lists. Surveys answers. Emails. Applications. Text messages.
Each day we spend time writing. We are constantly using written language to communicate with others. So, congratulations, you are an author!
In addition to every day writing, I also have made the commitment to write every day. As a new blogger, I am writing bits of future blogs. With inspiration from other blogs, I am able to refine my skills and write better.
I try to find inspiration in anything and everything. Whether it is a conversation with my husband, a situation on my worship team, or a thought evoked from another blog, I write a few lines as soon as I can. If it’s something worth pursuing, I’ll return to it. If not, it just sits there, sad and incomplete. Who knows when it may turn into something interesting? There is no such thing as a bad idea, right?
By subscribing my Google reader to numerous feeds and bookmarking blogs, I surround myself with other bloggers. I am exposed to the topics that readers are enjoying and different writing styles. This helps encourage me to continue to write and share my message.
How do you keep your priorities and interests straight in an information overload world?
