Time To Think

Morning team. Alright so here we are for our first Wednesday Workshop in the month of September. Wow, can you believe it? Today is the 1st of September and schools getting ready to start next week. Next Monday is Labor Day. Amazing things are going to be coming this fall. I’m so excited.

So, this morning I was sitting down, and I was reading, and I was thinking. I was in my little daily reader with John Maxwell. I read a quote by a man named James Joyce. It says, “Your mind will get back to you exactly what you put into it.”

“Your mind will give back to you exactly what you put into it.” Then Maxwell goes on to say that “The greatest enemy of our productive life is busyness.” Started thinking about that, and then later on Maxwell followed up, saying that one minute of thinking, and he talks about his thinking chair where he goes, and he sits, and he thinks.  He says that “One minute of thinking is greater than an hour of talking, or unplanned work, busy work.”

For me, I have been thinking a lot lately more about that. This last summer here, Karen and I have spent more time processing and spending time thinking and working on stuff. We’ve been working with our team leaders about taking what we call clarity breaks. Time for them to get away and spend time just thinking about their department, their area of influence, their goals, and what they would like to accomplish with their team. All of those things.  I think that has been very productive, I think it has been very productive. And I think they would agree. I know that Karen and I would agree, and it’s been very productive for us to be thinking like that.

So, I have learned that the busyness of the day, the busyness of the work, the constant focus of just going from task to task, meeting to meeting, and just busy work versus spending a few quality moments processing, and thinking it has helped us to stop, and slow down a little bit and think.

So, what I would like to challenge you to do and think about on this Wednesday, is that you take a few minutes. Whether it be getting a good book, spending some time and processing, thinking as you’re reading quotes or you’re reading lines from a good quality book, or manual, or whatever it is or you’re just sitting. Just thinking and letting life kind of slow down for a minute so that you can actually concentrate, as opposed to getting caught up in the things around you.

It’s easy to do a load of dishes or do a load of laundry or to sweep the floor, vacuum, get into e-mail, get into Facebook, or get into Instagram, or whatever. It’s easy to let something sidetrack you from thought and you know get you riled up. Maybe focused on politics, or whatever it is your thing is. Take those minutes. You might find that a few consistent minutes of good-quality thought will be better than an hour of just busy work. You might further yourself that much more.

OK, so on this Wednesday Workshop guys, again, be valuable because nothing less will do.

It is so great and I’m excited about this fall, getting to spend more time with you guys. Getting ready for our leadership class that’s coming up. Oh, my goodness the more I think about it, I got some more thinking to do to prepare and prep for that.

So, God bless you.

I will see you guys next week.