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Posts Tagged ‘Doing the Next Thing’

DTNT Decluttering: Days 3 & 4

Posted in Church, Doing the Next Thing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 4 February, 2016| 5 Comments »

Wednesday was quite a cluttered day here in the Vicarage. Jolly left for a new safe home, and the Vicar spent the morning with him, the Hope for Justice team, and CID. As you do. Meanwhile, I was with the team running our monthly soup lunch. For a chilly February day we served Melrose lentil soup and an approximation of Spiced Root Soup. There were also whole orange cakes for afters. And then our dear friend Song came to spend her day off with us and so Wednesday disappeared with rather a lack of attention to the mess.

Pleasingly, today’s rummage in the boys’ bedroom meant I could knock out 3+4 items easily. Look! Lots of picture books that haven’t been read for quite some time. And I’m not even going to hold some of them back for later in the month – I’ve barely started with the book shelves in there.

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DTNT Decluttering: Day 2

Posted in Doing the Next Thing, tagged , , , , , , , , on 2 February, 2016| 1 Comment »

Today has been pretty busy in the Vicarage. The Vicar spent most of the day helping Jolly, who’s been staying in our shed. He’s been at the police station about it and has met the team from Hope For Justice, who have been brilliant. With their help, we expect Jolly’s story to improve immensely from now on. He ate supper with us this evening and he told us some of his story, which has had some amazing twists and turns along the way. We are glad to have been a part of it.

I’ve been cooking for our community soup lunch tomorrow. But I’m not sure that the mountains of vegetable peelings properly count as decluttered objects, alas. But when I was in the bathroom this morning I realised that a couple of bath lilies were really quite scraggy. So they’ve gone out. And I’m going to chuck some more bathroom debris as I go to bed tonight. I need to get some control over that collection of almost empty shampoo bottles…

bath-bottle-products-shampoo-conditioner-small

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Doing the Next Thing: Trying Again

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , on 26 January, 2016| 5 Comments »

I started so well. I expect you did too. January I mean. The new term. Full of cheese, chocolate and sleep, we launch into the new year forgetting that the lethargy we felt before Christmas will return.

But then term really gets going, a couple of weeks in, and going for a run becomes the last thing I want to do. A bad night’s sleep and my bible reading seems to need too much energy and motivation to tackle. My plans to blog every night disappear as ideas are squeezed out of my head by family admin.

So tonight is a good night to remember to Do the Next Thing. The next blog post, the next bit of exercise, the next load of laundry, the next bible reading. I need to remember that the two week pause doesn’t mean that I can’t do the Next Thing today. I can read my bible again today, even if there’s been a hiatus. I can write something again, even if it’s just writing about not writing.

And, remembering the God of grace who knows my failures and struggles, and the forgiveness that he offers for those who make a mess of life, and especially of resolutions, tomorrow I’ll set my mind on Doing the Next Thing.

Do the Next Thing Burnt Heart

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Doing the Next Thing: A Result!

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 9 January, 2016| Leave a Comment »

In my week and a bit of Doing the Next Thing, I have failed to do various admin tasks. They are glaring at me from the planner and I will need to make friends with them next week. I’m not even going to mention the ironing.

But I do seem to have a genuine, not-seen-before, result. I managed to get my head around the term for Junior Church. That means that the other leaders will have their planning notes ahead of time. I’ve done a little of that before. But my completely new achievement is a set of visual aids for the new series (on Elijah and Elishah). They always suggest them in our On The Way materials. But when I’m planning on a Saturday evening, there isn’t usually time (or energy). I am also quite pleased with the discovery of wooden skewers to make the pictures into puppets. They slightly remind me of the characters from the Victorian style puppet theatre I had as a child.

I think we’re going to have fun with these on Sunday morning. I’m going to give different children a couple of puppets each and see if we can act it out as I read the passage. Who shall I cast as the bowl of flour, I wonder?

junior Church characters

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Doing the Next Thing: But not Everything

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , on 8 January, 2016| Leave a Comment »

My sister and I are expert procrastinators. And we were talking this evening about how Doing the Next Thing is helping us both this year. It’s just small things for me – putting the paper straight in the bin instead of leaving it for “later” (an expandable time that may end up being several months), or responding to the email that came in and not just reading and having the need to reply buzzing about my head for several days (or weeks – told you I was an expert).

And it also made me think about how it’s okay to Do the Next Thing, but not Do Everything. My bedroom is a case in point – as I mentioned yesterday, my side of the bed had become rather a dangerous obstacle course. What I didn’t mention was that the dust was several inches deep on my bedside cabinet and the chest of drawers next to the bed. And that the books piled up in several locations were beginning to totter alarmingly.

2000px-international_tidyman-svgBut I’ve not quite had the mojo to tackle everything in one fell swoop. So I’ve been clearing up a little at a time. This has had the advantage of being quite achievable – just five minutes or so per day, tackling one part of the problem. And it means that the smug ‘look at that tidy spot’ feeling can be stretched over at least a week as you make small changes. And best of all, it hasn’t given me Tidy Insomnia – that strange feeling of excitement and buzziness that I get when I’ve tidied my bedroom in one go. And that stops me sleeping.

My sister confirms that she too suffers from Tidy Insomnia. And we both find that late night tidying can lead to this phenomenon too. Dangerous thing, tidying up. But it can be done if tackled in small doses. Or so I’ve found this week.

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