loveisgreaterthan[dot]com

i spent a couple hours with jason this morning helping him redesign theworstblogger.com.

i’m glad he’s happy with it, because i love it! i was quite jealous as i started putting the finishing touches on it.

go check it out, leave him some love.

one of my favorite rss feeds in my google reader is lifehacker.com. i don’t remember how i found the site, but friends, i’m serious… this site helps me every day. the site is all about tips and tricks on how to do life, but do it better.

they recently released a book, and i found some sample chapters on mud puppy’s blog. one of which i was particularly interested in, the section on managing your email. i quickly read through the entire sample section, and decided right then and there i wanted to incorporate this email system into my life.

i receive around a hundred emails every day. honestly, apple mail (and my direct push enabled smart phone) owns my life. at least it used to. something had to happen or else i was going to lose my mind. yes, ladies and gentleman, i am a recovering email-aholic. my apple mail automatically checked every minute, and every time i received an email i would stop doing whatever i was doing, check it, and sometimes handle it. it’s amazing i’ve gotten anything done the last four years at work!

two days into this, i am maintaining a zero-inbox. which is to say, everything is dealt with and has a place, there is nothing that needs immediate attention, and people are getting responded to in a much more timely fashion, even though my email now checks itself once every fifteen minutes (lifehacker recommends every hour, i’m slowly working my way up to that.)

i’ve gone from 5128 emails in my inbox, to zero… in a little under forty-eight hours. two days in a row i have completely rocked my to-do list, probably working more efficiently than i ever have. it truly is nothing short of amazing.

so, it goes without saying that i highly recommend any of you who struggle with GTD (getting things done), to-do lists, email, or whatever, to check out lifehacker and their book.

not sure why i’m up so late, but i am… so whatever.

i was reading through some blogs and i found this one on ragamuffin soul. it absolutely broke my heart… click here to read, or check out a quote below:

One week ago David Trotter, pastor of Revolution Church in Long Beach CA and a blog acquaintance of mine wrote this on his blog… …That was the last post he wrote on his blog.

Just 2 days prior he informed his church that he was taking a sabbatical because God was nudging him to figure some things out.

Two days after he wrote that post, he left his wife and 2 kids for another woman.

i would be straight-faced lying to you if i sat here and typed something about how i can’t imagine how guy could do this. no joking here, really… we are ALL one or two steps away from making a HUGE mistake in our lives. not a single day goes by where i do not face some sort of temptation, whether it be from the opposite sex, alcohol, or any other of a number of ways to screw something great in my life up.

there used to be times where i absolutely resented some of the rules we have in place at cedarcreek to help safeguard the employees against sexual sin. i was going to link to them here, as i thought we still had them displayed on our website, but unfortunately i cannot find the link on our site. luckily, i did find them on saddleback church’s (we adopted it from them.) here are the rules i have to live by to work at cedarcreek… some of you may look at them and freak out, some may not… check it:

1. Thou shalt not go to lunch alone with the opposite sex. *
2. Thou shalt not have the opposite sex pick you up or drive you places when it is just the two of you.*
3. Thou shalt not kiss any attender of the opposite sex or show affection that could be questioned.*
4. Thou shalt not visit the opposite sex alone at home. *
5. Thou shalt not counsel the opposite sex alone at the office, and thou shalt not counsel the opposite sex more than once without that person’s mate. Refer them.
6. Thou shalt not discuss detailed sexual problems with the opposite sex in counseling. Refer them.
7. Thou shalt not discuss your marriage problems with an attender of the opposite sex.
8. Thou shalt be careful in answering emails, instant messages, chatrooms, cards or letters from the opposite sex.
9. Thou shalt make your co-worker your protective ally.
10. Thou shalt pray for the integrity of other staff members.

* The first four do not apply to unmarried staff.

this is not a joke, we take it very seriously. why? because we are well aware of the temptations we all face. again, i would be straight-faced lying to you if i said that i thought myself above this. and honestly, who amongst you can say otherwise? these rules, while i admit to resenting them at times, are there for a very good reason and i have grown thankful for them. they’ve been around for a few years now, and honestly i barely even notice them anymore.

a lot of us, especially the guys, even go so far as to have accountability software installed on our computers (x3watch for most of, myself included), the internet is a very tempting place!

but this is just one aspect… just one way to “fall.” even these rules cannot protect me all the time. even with these rules times will come where i will have to take a step back and acknowledge that maybe i have to change a behavior or a relationship. it’s difficult, i am not going to lie… but it’s worth the trouble. my wife, my life, my career, are all worth the trouble.

what about you? what lengths… if any, do you go to to help safeguard yourself from a “fall?”

the church where i work, we’re gifted with a passionate and driven high school pastor. he’s a great teacher (when he has the opportunity) on the weekend services, additionally he is generally just an amazing leader. his name is ben snyder, and he recently challenged his high school students with the same challenge (different dates) i am about to issue to all of you who read this blog, and all of you who are finding this site from facebook or myspace.

how much are we missing in our lives, in our families lives, our friends lives, our spiritual lives… by paying ridiculous amounts of attention to our plethora of electronic devices? we live in the “noisiest” time in the history of the world. we have so many things competing for our attention, it’s no wonder that we have trouble relating to people, and to our faith.

i’m not going to sit here and tell you that these things are “evil,” because i honestly don’t believe that. however, i do believe in the value of disconnecting, or “fasting” every once in a while. if for no other reason than to prepare for an inevitable giant e.m.p. (electromagnetic pulse) going off someday that destroys all the worlds electronic devices, thus thrusting tom cruise into becoming the leader of the planet alongside xenu, the alien founder of scientology that populated the earth through volcanoes.

so anyway — for seven days, beginning monday, march seventeenth and continuing through sunday, march twenty-third i will be unplugging, and i hope many, many people join me.

what does this mean? no television. no email. no blogging (this includes guest blogs). no twittering (this is the most painful). no facebook. no myspace. no flickr. no youtube. no ipod. no internet. no computer. no texting. no phone calls.

one week to focus all of my time and energy on my faith, my family, my friends. seven days of listening, reading, growing.

now, the rules are this; obviously we all have responsibilities, be it work, school, whatever… that require you to use a phone and various forms of communication. this challenge applies to every thing OUTSIDE of your work/school day. this will look different for everyone. for example, i have a job where i sort of need to be on call, so if something happens and my boss calls me at eight pm on a tuesday night, i’m still going to answer it. however, the first thing i’ll ask is if it can be put off till the next regular working day. so you’re just going to have to be diligent on your own… nobody is going to babysit you here.

everyone get it?

that high school pastor i was talking about, put together a video about the high school challenge, so the dates are different, but the idea is the same. watch this two minute video below to see what i believe this to be so important. he can say it much better than i can.

so, who’s coming with me? don’t make me do this alone! leave a comment below, let’s do this together!

i’ve said it in the past in regards to what i post on my site, that i need to do more to increase the signal to noise ratio. meaning, more of my posts need to have some meat to them, rather than just the potatoes and vegetables.

i’m taking this same line of thought to the rest of my life. i’ve realized there are a few things i do that can easily be cut out to create more time (hopefully) for other things that have been put on the wayside.

some examples,

• virb - i just don’t use this site that often. as cool as it is, i’m going to set my virb.com account to be nothing more than a pointer to this site, and stop logging in.
• facebook - i am going to be removing some of you from my friends list. i ask that you do not take it personally, but honest to goodness i’m tired of getting updates and pirate requests from people i can’t even remotely call my friend, not even an internet-friend. from here on out, i will be only becoming friends with people whom i interact with at least on some personal level, and this will be determined by me. there is no hard rule here. additionally, i’ve removed from my profile a bunch of “noise.”
• myspace - i honestly don’t know why people still use myspace. especially those of you over twenty-one. regardless, i tend to log in more often than i should. i will be unsubscribing to ALL of your myspace blogs, except for a few (addison, for one… until he gets himself a real blog finally), set my notifications to only let me know when someone leaves me a message, and stop logging in.
• this website - not much is changing here, other than the fact that i don’t care if it helps to offset the costs of hosting this site, i’ve gotten rid of the ads. i have nothing against you if you choose to have ads on your site, i’ve just decided that for me personally, people aren’t coming here to be asked to buy something, or click on something.
• twitter - i used to have mobile notifications turned on, no more! i was getting nearly fifty texts a day from twitter alone! i’ve decided twitterific is good enough for me. especially with some people, coughLOScough, who update twitter as if their life depended on it.

that’s a good start.

i’m also working on something pretty big (that i’m stealing from someone else) for the week before easter. i’m hoping to get a big blogger-following… so i’ll be counting on some of you to help! if you’re interested in spending seven days with a few less distractions, and intentionally spending some time focused on faith, family, or whatever… leave me a comment and i’ll hook you up with more information. everyone else, will find out soon enough.

yeah, over one thousand rss-feeds to catch up on. i’m happy to report, that i did read every single one of the personal blogs, and a few others… but once i finished that, i did in fact hit that “mark all as read” button. sorry engadget…

ps - i haven’t organized the blogs hanging out below the folders yet, so if you see yours there, it’s not because i don’t like you, i’m just lazy.

so as most of you know already, my wife and i are leaving for a cruise early sunday morning.

while i am away, jason smithers of theworstblogger.com will be managing this site for me. i have secured a number of fantastic guest bloggers, and i am so excited about this blog next week! i mean seriously, the content is going to be fantastic, and none of it will be written by me!

no joke, you do not want to miss anything next week. i’m going to be posting part one of a two part guest blog early tomorrow morning, and that’ll set the tone for the whole week. there will be new content almost every day, and it’s all by people much cooler than me.

there will be guest blogs from bryan2, my friend addison, a local pastor and advocate for the poor and homeless, theworstblogger, someone who wishes to remain anonymous, maybe a surprise here and there, and even a “biggest loser.”

i fully anticipate the best week of this website is going to be a week where i’m not involved
by the way, as i am able, i will be updating the twitter while on vacation. so be sure to keep checking back if only for that. but i have a feeling once you see some of the guest blogs, you’ll be pumped to come back anyway.

ps… just in case this needs to be said, i’m going to go ahead and say it. the people i asked to guest blog, are all doing it because i respect them, their opinions, and what they have to say. however, that does not necessarily mean i endorse them, or support their point of view. so do not take what anyone over the course of the next week says as my opinion, because it may not be.

sunday morning ryanne and i leave for a seven day cruise to the western caribbean. to say i’m pumped would be the understatement of the century.

anyway, i want to keep some content going here on the site while i’m gone, so i’m curious if there is any of you out there that would be at all interested in doing a guest-blog on this site while i’m gone? there aren’t many benefits for you, i’m not going to lie… but it will give you an opportunity to pimp the crap out of whatever you so choose, whether it be your own blog or your own agenda…. so i guess that’s something. i know my corner of the internet isn’t the worlds most popular so it’s not exactly like primetime, or heck even daytime.. but maybe you could just consider it a favor towards me ;-).

if you’re interested, let me know in the comments, or shoot me an email at joshua[at]loveisthemovement[dot]com.