Focus

This week I have 3 worship services to finalize, 4 sermons to write, and a newsletter to write. Oh, and the Wednesday noon prayer service to figure out. On weeks like this, I find it very hard to focus. I was pacing today, as I sought to figure out where to begin and had all these ideas and thoughts bouncing around in my head. We had lots of people dropping in with various concerns: what happened to the children's Sunday school material? how can we support a family having financial struggles? what about paint colors for the painting that will begin in January? why did the service board do things this way? what did the board do with the budget last night? how do we handle my salary package for next year? meaning that there were plenty of things to distract me. I finally decided I needed to go out to lunch.
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I took sermon material and headed out the door. I think Administrative Assistant was relieved, as my pacing was taking a path through her office. I went to the local coney and ordered a coney platter and iced tea. I focused on the sermon material, and quickly had Christmas Eve outlined. It had been bouncing around in my head for days, but had never made it on to paper.
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I came back and started pandora on instrumental Christmas music. I quickly wrote the last three articles I needed to write for the newsletter and shipped them off to AA. I told AA for the 45th time that it really does help me to focus if I can get away for a little bit. She is quite patient with my quirks. While I was gone I thought about the things I needed her to get me for my meeting with the family tomorrow about the memorial service next week. When I walked back into the church, she handed them to me. It's scary the way she reads my mind sometimes.
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I've now finished the prayer service for tomorrow noon. AA has gone home to celebrate her daughter's birthday. I'm trying to figure out Christmas Day. I'm beginning to get some ideas, so I should be able to get it finalized today. We need to ship it off to the volunteer who puts together the PowerPoint.
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I requested a Sunday off in January at the meeting last night, but hadn't selected a date. Today I decided it will be January 29. The two boards will have an all day meeting on January 28th, so it will be wonderful not to have to worry about leading worship the next day.
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As crazy and stressful as this week is, I'm grateful that we sat down at the beginning of November to space out the work. It did help. AA observed that she was having a hard time figuring out how to fit everything into the newsletter, as there was so much information that needed to go into it. I pointed out to her that is part of the reason why we are so stressed....
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As stressful as the week is, I love the challenge of juggling multiple projects. I love my work.