My morning routine is pretty rigorous. Mornings are the best time of the day for me to get things done and I find it really easy to habit stack in the morning.

HABIT STACKING- Habit stacking is a special form of an implementation intention. Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit. This method, which was created by BJ Fogg as part of his Tiny Habits program, can be used to design an obvious cue for nearly any habit.

It seems my mornings are times when I have the most habits which I can easily link other activities to. I make the coffee, walk the dogs, make my bed while listening to my daily Bible chapters. I make breakfast and sit with Mom to do our Storyworth question (although lately we have been having a hard time getting to these as other topics of convo come up). I feed the birds, empty the dehumidifier and check the furnace level.

Tuesdays are especially in need of the morning habit stacking. Tuesdays are staff meeting days, and so I give two hours of the morning to meeting with the church staff to go over the week at work. This means two things: It means I lose two hours and that a good portion of my brain space is used up by noon. Tuesday afternoon s sometimes not very productive. So I need to get certain things done in the morning. Not just all the things I mentioned, I also need to make sure the finishing touches are put on my sermon for Sunday and I am as you can see trying to make sure that writing and doing my devotional video is part of this morning routine.

Of course that means a few things might have to give as there is only so much morning to go around. I think I will leave the dishes in the sink for this afternoon.

WHAT DOES YOUR MORNING ROUTINE LOOK LIKE? IS ONE MORNING BUSIER THAN ANOTHER?

Here we are! The beginning of Holy Week. It feels like we have officially moved into Spring. Even the world seems to know it.

I had a board meeting with my deacons yesterday and one of our talking points was about the work of preparation God has been speaking to all of us about especially in light of what some of our sister churches are facing this Spring throughout the United States

Here Spring is coming in gently. I cannot imagine what it is like to pastor this Spring in Rolling RockMS Or Little Rock Arkansas or Nashville TN. My prayers are with those congregations as they face their incredible challenges. I am also praying that God helps us in, this gentler season for us, to prepare for whatever difficulty may lie ahead.

Our own thirteen hours blackout a few weeks ago during the ice storm showed me the need for us to obtain a secondary heat source for The Vicarage.

And the need for emergency packs has also begun to speak to my heart.

All those things aside, I am turning my eyes away from those things today to Sabbath myself (another very important aspect of personal preparation for what lies ahead). So today I am watching the Spring birds. Flocks have come to my feeders.

Grackles

Redwing Blackbirds

Cowbirds.

These Spring birds have returned enmasse.

I have two flocks that visit daily on opposite sides of the property. The morning flock is between twenty and thirty birds and the afternoon flock is between forty and sixty birds. My soul is refreshed as I watch these troops converge on the house as I read the Scriptures and write down thoughts that have been waiting days to meet the page.

HOW ARE YOU PREPARING FOR THE SPRING AND SUMMER SEASON?

My daughter says I need a real Sabbath. I do take one… sort of. I come home on Sundays after service and I try not to do anything other than my Monday devotional until Monday night men’s group.

Some weeks I do better than others. After last week, when I didn’t get the sermon done until Friday night, I got nervous. Since I already knew what I was preaching for this next Sunday I wrote the sermon on Monday which meant of course…no day off.

Yesterday I had staff meeting, came home to do bills and to work through my own health insurance options while also working on Grace’s next steps into the world of Medicaid. Then I got a call to attend the bedside of a man preparing for his eternal journey. So I decided to cancel my regularly scheduled evening meetings with other parishioners.

This morning I woke up to two e-mails pushing towards decisions for the health insurance and some changes around the Vicarage. Neither of them were pushy or terribly serious they just started the day on an emphasis of decision making before I had even had my first cup of coffee.

I have been learning in my NOOM app about decision fatigue. I know this is one of my issues. Too many decisions….Noom says one of the ways to deal with decision fatigue is to automate some of your decisions. Move them from the plate of conscious decision to automatic action. Things like: What to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner, The order of activities in the day, what clothes to wear.

I also think my daughter is right. I have to be much more intentional about building in a decision free day…a real sabbath. And I think I need to build some actual decision making/ planning time into my schedule. It is there I am just not using the planning time to its proper advantage.

HERE’S A QUESTION. WHAT ARE SOME TRICKS YOU USE TO INTENTIONALLY PLAN YOUR LIFE?

I love to listen to music of all kinds. My car is equipped with a radio, a CD player, Bluetooth for Apple Car play, and Sirius XM capability. I use none of it.

I listen to the radio maybe .5% of the time I am driving. Even on long drives, like any drive up to Claremont I seldom listen to music on the radio.

Driving is my thinking time.

Driving is additional talking to God time.

The Good Lord is doing so much just now. My life is so full of His moving in new and wonderful ways I find myself needing every spare minute to put into context what He is doing.

I keep hearing Him say, “You must see what I am doing.”

Seeing what He is doing takes time and lots of deep consideration. Who needs a radio? The music of the spheres is constantly playing in my head.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU ARTE DRIVING?