Month: February 2017

What I Learned This Winter

February 28, 2017 / Jean / 7 Comments

This week I’m pausing to join Emily Freeman and her community of readers in talking about what I learned this season. And I’m glad this has come up because this winter had quite a lot to teach me, lessons both big and small (and a little scary).

Apparently you can have two words. Remember back in January when I said I originally thought my One Word for this year was “faithfulness,” but then I felt God nudging me to switch it to “abandon”? Apparently, I’m supposed to focus on both, because no sooner did I set aside “faithfulness” as my word than I started getting bombarded with lessons on both God’s faithfulness and faithful obedience. Like, every single Bible study I’ve done since the beginning of the year has emphasized these things. I’ll be talking about this more in the months to come because I’ve learned a lot on this topic and there’s too much to go into in this post.
I’m actually capable of keeping a clean house. Y’all, I’ve never been able to get this whole housekeeping thing down, and I’m over 40. I figured that at this point, this leopard ain’t going to change her spots, and I was working on accepting this about myself. But this year I kept feeling a nudge to just do my best to be a faithful steward of my home (see item 1 above), and so far, I’ve been doing pretty good. I’m not going to be winning any Good Housekeeping seals of approval or anything, but I’ve managed to pick up some habits that are helping me stay on top of things, and I’m finding that this thing I’ve struggled with all my life is really not that hard. I don’t know if I just reached an age where the adulting switch finally flipped to ON of its own accord or if it’s something else that just clicked into place for me, but something has suddenly transformed me into a halfway decent housekeeper.And I’m not sure what it says about me that this, more than anything else I’ve done — more than getting a publishing deal for my novel series, more than losing weight and keeping it off, more than running a business — makes me feel like a capable, competent grown-up.
Small, faithful steps can accomplish much. Seriously, it never ceases to amaze me what just whittling away at something for 15 minutes a day can accomplish. That’s how I’ve managed to stay consistent (so far, this year) with updating this blog regularly. It’s how my next book is getting plotted and planned (and most likely will also get written). It’s how the sorting and packing is getting done. And it’s also how my house is getting cleaned — not necessarily 15 consecutive minutes a day, but just a few minutes here and there throughout each day. You can fit just about anything you really want to get done into your day if you do it in small bites, and while those tiny bites might feel futile and pointless at first, you’ll be amazed by how quickly they add up to big accomplishments.
I’ve learned a lot about English and Irish history. My husband is reading The English and Their History by Robert Tombs, and it’s put him in the mood to watch these documentary series about English and Irish castles on Netflix, both of which are heavily focused on medieval history. It’s all pretty fascinating. I can’t say I’m retaining a lot but some of it’s sinking in. I can tell you this — it was all pretty bloody.
I think I might be a minimalist. After so many years of living in cluttered chaos and inflicting mindless busyness on myself, I’m so, so tired of it. The Lord’s been working on me for the last couple of years now to get me to slow down and focus more on what really matters, and now I’m at a place where I want my home to reflect that, too. I crave white space not just in my days but also in my environment. The other day I watched the Minimalism documentary on Netflix and it really spoke to me and where I’m at in this season.
I know what my next book is about. And maybe the next two books (in the series) after that. I haven’t got the plot completely hashed out, but I’ve got a pretty good road map and I think I’m almost ready to start writing it.
I also think I know the sort of freelance writing I’d like to pursue. A vision is starting to emerge of being more of a Christian living and home and lifestyle blogger — which coincidentally seems to be the direction this blog is moving into. It feels like a bit of a stretch and it’s a little scary, but I’m trusting God and staying yielded to the kind of work He wants me to do. That seems to be the direction He’s leading me, but I don’t want to presume anything or run ahead of him. This whole sitting back and allowing Him to control and shape my writing career has been working pretty well so far and I sure don’t want to mess that up.
Trader Joe’s Ginger Turmeric tea is delicious. The end.
I learned about hygge. And that I pretty much already practice it but it’s nice to have a name for it, even if it’s funny and hard to pronounce.
We’ve been living catty-corner from a member of a Mexican drug cartel for the last several months. This nugget of information came to our attention a couple of mornings ago when we were awakened by a multi-departmental law enforcement raid on the neighbor’s house, complete with a SWAT team in full armor riding in on a small tank. There were minor explosions, but no gunfire, thank goodness. It was all very exciting — a little too exciting. Lord help us.

That’s quite a lot of learning crammed into a couple of months. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of lessons this next season will bring. The weather people are expecting a rather terrifying spring, with the potential for both more and bigger tornadoes, so there’s going to be plenty of opportunity to exercise faith over the next few months. Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, indeed.

What have you learned this month? Tell us, or link up your own What I Learned post in the comments!

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!

A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.

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How I Manage My Own Capacity: A Day in the Life

February 21, 2017 / Jean / 3 Comments

Day-in-the-life posts are a little weird to write. As a reader, I usually enjoy them and often find them helpful. But when it comes to sitting down to write one, it feels a little conceited and self-indulgent. Like, who really wants to know the details of how I spend a typical day?

Um, maybe people like me who find it helpful to know how other people manage their days (and find it encouraging to know that other people don’t have it together every hour of every day)?

So here goes. This is how I spend a typical day as a work-from-home freelance writer, homemaker and wife, and how I apply everything I’ve talked about in the last two posts.

Early Morning

My husband usually wakes up between 6 and 6:30. I wake up when he does, and get up long enough to let the dog out of his pen and do his morning business. Then I get back in bed with the dog until my husband’s done in the kitchen, usually sometime around 7:00.

Once I’m up for real, I take my thyroid pill and drink a big glass of water before I feed the dog, let the cat out and make sure she’s got food and water, and check on the turtle. Then I go into the kitchen and put on water to boil for coffee (I make it in a French press). While I wait for the water to boil and then for the coffee to steep, I try to get some kind of movement in. Sometimes I do stretches, sometimes I just pace back and forth in the kitchen, sometimes I get on the stationary bike. Lately, though, I’ve been grabbing a wet wipe and using the time to wipe down surface in the kitchen, and also round up any recyclables that got left out the night before.

When my coffee’s ready, I pour myself a cup and then snuggle on the couch with my dog and my Bible. I usually spend about 15 minutes in prayer, then I open up my Bible to whatever chapter we’re reading that day in the First 5 app before reading that app’s lesson for the day. If I have any of my own insights, I’ll jot them down in my prayer journal.

After I’m done with my Bible study I usually have some time left before I can eat, so I use it to scroll through Bing and earn my daily mobile Bing points (we do this to earn Amazon gift cards). This usually entails looking at headlines, which usually leads to discussing current events (and to one or both of us ranting about the state of affairs).

By the time we’re done enough time has passed since taking my thyroid pill that I can eat breakfast. Typically on weekdays I eat refrigerator steel cut oats that I set up the night before. I zap them for about a minute to warm them and then zap a couple of chicken sausage links to go with them.

After breakfast I pour (and heat up) my second cup of coffee and sip it while I read my favorite daily devotional blogs, and then I segue into my favorite secular blogs and newsletters before taking a few minutes to check e-mail and notifications on all my social networks (and if I have time I might go ahead and scroll a little).

Mid-Morning

By the time I finish drinking coffee and making my online rounds, I’m usually feeling sufficiently awake to really begin my day. So I put down my phone, get off the couch, and go make myself change out of my pajamas into actual clothes–usually some combo of sweater/sweatshirt and leggings (or shorts and a tee-shirt in the summer). I don’t bother with makeup if I’m not going anywhere, but I do wash my face and put on moisturizer, and run a brush through my hair before either putting it up or hiding it under a wide headband. I also brush my teeth and take an extra minute or two to wipe down the bathroom sink and mirror.

Feeling sufficiently put together, I put on a cup of tea and then do some light housekeeping while it steeps. This usually involves picking up a trail of dog toys and corralling any living room clutter that might distract me while I work. If it’s cold or gloomy outside, I’ll usually light a candle or two, then sit down with my tea ready to work.

(At this point either my husband or I usually retreat to the bedroom with our work so we can both do our thing without distracting each other. Lately it’s mostly been my husband hanging out back there and leaving me with the living room all to myself.)

Late Morning/Early Afternoon

Before I start work I usually go over my bullet journal and see what’s needed that day. This typically involves praying and asking God to show me what He wants me to work on that day and asking Him to set my pace and give me the capacity to do what’s needed.

Then with my agenda in place, I get to work on whatever novel project I’ve got going on. Right now that means researching, plotting and outlining my next book, but when I get to the drafting stage this will be the time of day that most of the writing gets done.

I usually work on my book for about an hour to an hour and a half before I run out of steam. Then after a short break to check my e-mail and peek at Facebook and Instagram, I’ve usually got enough time before lunch to spend about 20 minutes working on my blog.

At about 1:00 I stop for lunch. First I feed my dog–he eats three tiny meals a day, and pretty much eats when I eat–and then I eat something quick and easy. On weekdays I’m a big fan of what I call healthy adult lunchables–cut up nitrate-free lunch meat, avocado slices and gluten-free crackers with some kind of fruit on the side.

After lunch, if the weather’s even halfway decent, my husband, the dog and I usually head outside for about twenty minutes to get some sunshine and/or fresh air (as fresh as it gets living off a major city street, at any rate) and some more movement. When we’ve had enough, we head back in and I make myself another cup of tea and do some more light housework while it steeps–usually involving dusting and wiping down surfaces.

Mid-to-Late-Afternoon

Once I get my tea and sit back down I’m usually feeling refreshed and focused enough to do some more writing. This is usually when I work on freelance projects. If I’m between freelance assignments, I use this time to work on my blogs or my newsletters, and also do various book and blog marketing tasks. If I’m getting close to a book deadline I’ll use this time to write on my book.

I usually run out of steam by about 4:30, so I get up to eat a healthy snack and make my third and final cup of tea–something light and non-caffeinated. Then I usually come back to the couch and just sit and sip my tea and look out the window. Sometimes I pray, sometimes I meditate on the Word, sometimes I just practice being still. Sometimes I just let my mind wander. The important thing is that I allow myself a few minutes every day to stop doing and just be.

All of this usually gives me enough of a charge that I can get in another hour or so of work. But I try to stop working and shut down my computer by about 5:45. This gives me 30 to 45 minutes in the evening to do something just for me. Sometimes I’ll put on a podcast and work on a craft project, or on KonMari-ing my stuff, or coloring in my adult coloring books or doodling in my journaling Bible. Sometimes I’ll just read a book or watch some videos. If it’s laundry week, this is usually when stuff gets folded and put away.

Evening

Around 6:30 I stop whatever I’m doing and eat dinner (after feeding the dog his last bitty meal, which is more like a snack so he doesn’t feel deprived and spend the evening pouting). My husband and I are on different eating schedules and also different diets, so we usually each cook for ourselves, but I try to do enough meal prep on the weekends that on week nights I can just heat something up.

After dinner I clean up my mess and wash my dishes, then set out everything I need to make my coffee in the morning and prep my refrigerator oats to soak overnight. Then I brush my teeth and make another pass at wiping down the sink and mirror before my husband and I snuggle up together on the couch and watch a show.

After the show, usually around 8:30, we turn off screens and start getting ready for bed. We have an elaborate routine involving putting all the pets up for the night that I won’t get into, but by the time they’re all tucked in and I change into my PJs and wash my face it’s usually about 9:00. I take my bullet journal to bed with me and write down anything I want to remember from the day, and also answer my daily questions. I’ll also jot down a tentative agenda for the following day, and if there’s a lot on my mind I’ll do a quick mind sweep to clear my head. Then I read a book until lights out at 10:00.

So there you have it. The main things to notice are how I don’t really schedule my time; I simply have times of day that are best suited to certain tasks, and everything else kind of flows around that. I’ve established rhythms for myself that make the best use of my peak capacity and let me do things that rebuild my capacity when it starts to wane.

I also keep a tight reign on things like social media and other distractions, although I don’t eliminate them completely, because they do add a little spice to my day and help me feel more connected to the world at large. It’s taken a lot of trial and error (and a lot of beating myself up for not being able to do it the way I thought I was supposed to), but this is what works, at least for this particular season of my life.

What about you, friend? Do you arrange your day according to rhythms or are schedules more your jam? How do you manage your capacity? Have you learned anything from this series of posts that might help you manage it better? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

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Managing Your Capacity to Steward Your Time

February 14, 2017 / Jean / 8 Comments

“Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” — Colossians 4:5

This week my month-long series on managing our capacity continues. Last week we looked at what capacity is, and the importance of knowing (and being realistic about) your own capacity — i.e., the size of your plate.

This week we’re getting into the nitty gritty of actually figuring out how to manage your capacity, or maybe more accurately, how to manage your time within the limits of your capacity.

Our key verse from Colossians suggests that being good stewards of our time is part of walking in wisdom toward outsiders. In other words, managing our days well serves as a good witness to unbelievers. Of course we don’t want to present a fake, smiley brand of Christianity where we force cheerfulness and go around pretending that everything’s always great. That sort of thing doesn’t serve anybody.

Remember that I’m preaching to myself here, y’all.

We don’t have to have it all together or even appear to have it all together all the time. But as believers empowered and equipped by the Holy Spirit, our lives should look like that actually makes a difference, even if it’s just in our attitudes.

And that’s what this concept of managing our capacity for usefulness vs. managing our time is all about: giving ourselves a whole lot of grace as we acknowledge and even embrace our limitations and proceed to do the very best we can with what we’re given, relying on God to strengthen and sustain us and help us do what needs to be done.

Before we get into the steps of how I manage my capacity, I want to make clear that this is just that: how I manage my capacity. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Some of this might work for you. Some of it might need a little tweaking in order to work. Some of it might not work for you at all. This stuff took me a lot of trial and error to figure out and I’m still working on it, tweaking it as necessary.

I should also point out that my husband and I are both work-at-home freelancers with no kids, and I realize that makes some of this easier for us than it might be for you. Just know that as you’re envying my ability to move slowly through my day and have plenty of margin that there’s not a lot I wouldn’t give to be chasing around after kids all day.

Okay. Now I’ve broken this down into steps, but these aren’t really steps that need to be followed in any particular order, one after another.

Step One: Decide What Matters

I talked about this in a previous post (which links to a Lazy Genius post expanding on the topic that you should definitely read). But before you can begin effectively managing your days, you have to have your priorities nailed down; otherwise you end up wasting your capacity and time on things that don’t matter.

The thing to remember here is that your priorities are YOUR priorities. It’s not about what’s important to your mom or your mother-in-law or people on Pinterest or Instagram or the mean boss in your head. This isn’t about “should” or “ought to.” Just go ahead and eliminate those phrases from your vocabulary.

This isn’t purely about being productive and useful every waking hour of the day. This is about designing your days so that you flourish, and feel good about life, and don’t get burned out or depressed because you’re overwhelmed and stuck in hustle mode.

So if it’s important to you to have time at some point each day to read a book or scroll Pinterest or color in your coloring Bible or work out or go outside or bake cookies or watch a show or whatever helps to recharge you and make you feel like a person and not a machine, that’s fine. It’s important and it matters, and it’s fine to make it a priority.

Step Two: Eliminate What Doesn’t Matter (or Pare it Way Down)

I’ve been reading up a lot lately on minimalism and simple living. There’s another concept along the same lines called essentialism, which is about figuring out what really matters in your life, and eliminating the things that stand in the way of that. Where minimalism seems to be more focused on only having what you need to live and be content, I feel like essentialism offers more margin for you to decide what you need in order for your soul to thrive–things that might have no place in a truly minimalist home or lifestyle.

Either way, the point is that it’s helpful to figure out what’s using up your time and capacity and getting in the way of what matters. If you’re spending an hour dusting and organizing your house every day then you probably need to get rid of some stuff (or maybe even get a smaller house). If it’s important to you to make time to read books but it doesn’t happen because you can’t tear yourself away from scrolling Facebook and getting stressed out over political memes then maybe you should delete your Facebook app. If you’re doing laundry all the time then maybe your family has too many clothes, or needs to learn how to wear stuff more than once before watching as long as it’s not smelly or stained. If you really want to write a book (or blog) but just can’t find the time then maybe stop watching TV during the week and save your can’t-miss shows for weekend binging (this is how I make time to write).

Step Three: Decide What’s Needed Today

Step One is about deciding what your priorities are in general. This is about deciding what actually needs to get done today. I do this by praying before I open up my bullet journal and asking God to show me what’s on His agenda for me for today. I ask Him to show me where I’m being too Martha by piling too much stuff on my plate that’s not actually needed, and instead to help me be more Mary and focus on what really matters.

The thing about Martha, bless her heart, is that she wanted to be impressive. I’m sure a lot of it was about wanting to impress the Lord while she was hosting Him in her living room, but she probably tended to try to be impressive in her hostess and homemaking duties in general.

But we don’t need to impress anybody, and most certainly not the Lord, who just wants our faithful obedience. So a good question to ask as you make your To Do list is, “Does this really need to get done, or am I just doing it to be impressive?”

Step Four: Establish Rhythms Instead of Schedules

I don’t know about you, friend, but for me figuring this out was a big deal. Things just really clicked into place for me once I stopped assigning set times to my tasks and started figuring out where they fit into the rhythms of my day instead.

For example, I have ADD, but there are certain times of day when I’m naturally more able to focus on tasks that require a lot of concentration. For me it’s the late morning, after I’ve had all my coffee and am fully awake, and about two to four in the afternoon. So this is when I do all my writing. I work on my novels and blog posts in the late morning hours leading up to lunch, and in the afternoon I work on freelance assignments. During the times when I’m less focused I do tasks that require less mental energy, like housework or exercise or marketing my books and blogs on social media.

I also try to punctuate my days with breaks to just sit quietly and stare out the window. Sometimes I pray, sometimes I just practice being still in God’s presence, and sometimes I just let my mind wander and dream. To a lot of people this looks like wasting time, but I’ve learned that this time is necessary to help me recharge and re-focus, and it also helps me be more creative.

Of course, there will still be appointments and things that have set times that you can’t get away from. I just do my best to work my rhythms around them. It’s not always easy. A 2:00 doctor’s appointment, for instance, means that I’m not getting any freelance writing done that day — or if I have to because there’s a deadline, then I skip novel writing and do my freelancing in the late morning instead. The thing about rhythms is that they’re flexible and fluid in a way that schedules are not.

Step Five: Nurture Your Capacity

This post is already really long so I’ll try to keep this part short. The main thing is that, as I said in last week’s post, capacity has a way of expanding and shrinking. You can expand your capacity by doing things like eating healthy, getting regular exercise and getting plenty of sleep. You can also expand it, or help keep it expanded, by leaving enough margin on your plate for self-care. By that I mean doing things that fill you up and give you energy instead of depleting you.

My staring-out-the-window breaks are part of this for me. So is starting my day out with time in prayer and in the Word. So is taking ten minutes to go outside with my husband and dog to just stand in the sunshine soaking up vitamin D while we shoot the breeze, or squeezing in a few minutes of knitting, or taking five to color or doodle in my journaling Bible. So figure out what does that for you and then allow yourself the space to do it throughout the day without any guilt. It might not feel useful or productive but it’s absolutely necessary.

Bonus Step: Start a Bullet Journal

You don’t have to keep a bullet journal, and it might not be a good fit for you. But a bullet journal is flexible and adaptable and works with rhythms in a way that a planner with its neatly laid out time grids just can’t.

My favorite part about the bullet journal is how easy it is to “migrate” a task to the next day if it doesn’t get done. You still get to put a mark by that task–an arrow instead of a check mark–to indicate that it got moved, rather than just having this unmarked task staring at you accusing you of failure. It’s such a simple little mind trick that for me is huge. It’s not, “I’m a failure because I didn’t manage to fit this task in today.” Instead it’s, “I didn’t get to this today but that’s okay because it really can wait till tomorrow and it’s not a big deal.”

So there you have it — everything I’ve figured out so far about managing my capacity to be productive in order to make the most of my time. And good grief, this thing is long. I’m so sorry, but I hope that at least some of you find it helpful.

If you do, or if you have any insights of your own to add, let me know in the comments!

And be sure to come back next week, when I’ll illustrate how all of the above works in my own life with a Day in the Life post. Unless you hate those, in which case now you’ll know to skip it. 😉

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

3-D Lessons for Life

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Our Favorite Gratitude Prayers to Feel Better About Money

February 10, 2017 / Jean / 0 Comments

There’s no denying that money is important, but too much focus on it creates stress and anxiety as well as marital and family conflict. Measuring success in terms of material wealth puts the focus on what we lack rather than on what we already have. Fortunately, gratitude prayers are one of the most effective ways to combat this when we could use a reminder that our needs are often already met.

The writers of scripture knew this: gratitude Bible verses tell us again and again to give thanks. 1 Thessalonians 5:18, for example, commands us to give thanks in all circumstances. It may seem like a strange command to give thanks when times are hard, but those are precisely the times we need to exercise gratitude the most. And it’s not just the Bible that tells us this. As it turns out, science agrees.

Read the rest at Brightpeak Financial!

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

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Know Your Capacity

February 7, 2017 / Jean / 3 Comments

I’m going to try something a little different this month. Throughout February I’m going to do a multi-part series on managing your capacity. Capaci-what, you ask? We’ll get to what it is in a minute.

First, I just want to say that while I may at times write like I know what I’m talking about and I’m handing down sage advice and wisdom, the truth is that I’m preaching to myself here. Every now and then I figure something out, but then I turn around and forget it, or forget to apply it to how I do life. So my hope is that by sharing this stuff with you, dear reader, I’ll do a better job of remembering it for myself. But don’t for a minute be under the illusion that I’ve got it all together, because HA HA! Nope.

Anyway. So what do I mean by capacity?

What is Capacity?

For a long time — way, way too long — I thought being more productive and effectively adulting was all about learning how to manage my time. I tried out so many different time management systems — none of which actually worked — and constantly beat myself up for not being able to manage my time better so that I could get more done in a day. I really believed that if I could just be more organized about how I spent my time, that I could cram my plate full day after day after day and be some kind of superhero at getting stuff done.

It’s only been in the last year or so — this has been a gradual realization; I can’t cite a specific “A-ha!” moment — that I realized that I can be the best person ever at scheduling my time but that won’t make me able to be more productive. Because time isn’t the problem. The problem is that the time in which I have to get things done each day is not a uniform number of hours and minutes that I can neatly block out on a grid. Rather, the time I actually have each day is subject to things like my energy levels and my ability to think clearly and focus.

These things make up your capacity for productivity. And these things are not fixed. They fluctuate from day to day, even throughout the day, and they don’t always line up with each other. Sometimes I have more energy than I do focus. Sometimes — more rarely — I have more focus than I do physical energy. And your capacity can increase or decrease based on a number of factors, including how much stress you’re under, how much sleep you get, how you eat, etc.

This might not be anything new for you. But for me it was a revelation that completely changed how I do life from day to day.

Know Your Plate

We’ll get to the how next week. But first, it’s important to know — to really be honest with yourself about — your capacity.

I recently read this Proverbs 31 devotional that touched on this concept and compared capacity to a set of plates. You’re probably familiar with the idea of a “full plate” to refer to a full (or, more likely, overloaded) schedule. But typically when someone says their plate is full, we imagine a standard dinner plate. However, as this post pointed out, not everyone is blessed with a dinner-plate-sized capacity for productivity. Some people only have a salad plate. Some people only have a saucer or a dessert plate. And some fortunate souls are blessed with a big ol’ turkey platter.

And the thing is, the size of your plate can change. If I’m not taking good care of myself by eating healthy and avoiding gluten and dairy, I get foggy and lethargic and my capacity shrinks to salad-plate size. But if I consistently practice good self-care I tend to have more of a dinner plate. However, I still have the occasional bad day where my plate shrinks, and when that happens I’ve learned that I just need to cut myself some slack. Instead of trying to force a dinner-plate-sized load to fit on my salad plate, usually I just do what’s absolutely needed that day and give myself some rest so that hopefully my plate size will expand back to normal.

So know the size of your plate, and don’t compare it to other people’s plates. If they have a bigger plate it will just tempt you to feel bad about the small size of your plate. And if it turns out your plate is bigger than theirs? Then remember to give them grace. Don’t be one of those people who looks at someone struggling to manage an overloaded salad plate and think that they should be able to do as much as you do in a day.

Next week we’ll talk more about managing capacity instead of managing time. But for now I want to hear your thoughts. Is this a new concept for you? What size is your typical plate, and how often does that fluctuate? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

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Month: February 2017

What I Learned This Winter

How I Manage My Own Capacity: A Day in the Life

Early Morning

Mid-Morning

Late Morning/Early Afternoon

Mid-to-Late-Afternoon

Evening

Managing Your Capacity to Steward Your Time

Step One: Decide What Matters

Step Two: Eliminate What Doesn’t Matter (or Pare it Way Down)

Step Three: Decide What’s Needed Today

Step Four: Establish Rhythms Instead of Schedules

Step Five: Nurture Your Capacity

Bonus Step: Start a Bullet Journal

Our Favorite Gratitude Prayers to Feel Better About Money

Know Your Capacity

What is Capacity?

Know Your Plate

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