The Crazy is that thing that wakes you up at 4 am because you’re afraid you forgot to send an email. The Crazy is feeling in your legs that makes you bounce out of bed because you’re afraid that you’re already late and things are going to fall apart. The Crazy is that sense that you had when you woke up that you never really slept.

The Crazy is what drives you to drink a third cup of iced coffee at five in the afternoon. The Crazy is the million worries yelling at you when you’re supposed to be having a conversation with the person in front of you.

The Crazy is blowing off bills because you don’t want to think about them. The Crazy is when you don’t return a friend’s call because having friends now stresses you out. The Crazy is the sense of dread and shame that keeps you from being able to sit and read scripture or pray.

If you come from a high church tradition, you could probably tell me a whole lot about Lent. I know there’s something about fasting and another rule about eating fish. I’m a low church, free church Protestant who happens to think the Liturgical Calendar might be a good idea.

In years past I’ve tried to give up carbs or coffee, to varying degrees of success. If I understand the idea of Lent right, the point is to take time to be penitential and aware of your mortality and therefore our need for Jesus’s resurrection power.

What keeps me from reflecting on mortality or anything else is just The Crazy. There isn’t a switch that turns The Crazy off. What I can do is block out some time and dedicate it to non-Crazy things.

Now, halfway through Lent, I’m taking three steps to give up The Crazy.

1. Make lots of lists.

If you’ve read Getting Things Done then you know that the bulk of the problem is to get things out of your brain and in a list of “next steps.” I start with a “brain dump” where I write everything in a Moleskine. It’s mostly gobbledygook, which I try to then make sense of in a to do list app like Wunderlist.

2. Sacrifice the first hour.

The Crazy causes me to grab for my laptop and start sending emails before I get out of bed. To avoid this, I leave my computer in another room, and have my Clever Coffee Maker and Ninja Smoothie machine prepped the night before. I then dedicate the first hour to studying scripture (right now I’m using N.T. Wright’s Lent for Everyone), prayer and a good breakfast. This means acknowledging that I might have to work late or skip something as a result, which is bad, but better than the crazy.

3. Go to sleep well.

Neuroscientist and theologian Jim Wilder points out that many people go to sleep worrying. This results in spending the night pumping your brain full of the stress hormone cortisol. His suggestion is to spend the moments before you go to sleep taking the time to “feel appreciation.” Use your mind’s eye to remember moments where you felt appreciated, or had an appreciation for someone else. I find that this works hand in hand with the Benedictine tradition of the Prayer of Examen, or “rummaging through the day.”

It would be a lie to say that I’ve beaten The Crazy, but giving it up for Lent has allow me to start fighting back.

How do you keep from losing control to The Crazy?

The post I’m Giving Up Crazy for Lent appeared first on Chris Morton.

There are at least three approaches to New Year’s Resolutions. Some better than others depending on what you hope to accomplish.

The Goal

Most people confuse a goal with an intention. For instance “I’d like to lose weight” is an intention. “I will loose 10 pounds by eating 2 healthy meals a day for the next 60 days” is a goal. Use the tried and true framework “SMART” to help you articulate a goal you can succeed at:

Simple

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Time-Bound

Habit

Unlike a goal, a habit is a change of lifestyle. Examples of habits include “exercise daily” and “never check email before 9am.” The best way to learn a new habit it to subvert an existing one.

In The Power of Habit, author Charles Duhigg, talks about how he broke his mid-morning cookie habit. He realized that what he enjoyed was not the chewy chocolate chips, but the opportunity to move around and socialize. He replaced his cookie break with a short time to walk around the office and socialize. The cookie was hardly missed, and he even lost a little weight.

Skills

We all have abilities we’d like to attain, like speaking a foreign language, learning to paint or write code. While mastering a skill may take 10,000 hours, basic competence can be achieved in only 20 hours.

According to Josh Kaufman,

[Rapid skill acquisition is] a way of breaking down the skill you’re trying to acquire into the smallest possible parts, identifying which of those parts are most important, then deliberately practicing those elements first.

The amount of time it will take you to acquire a new skill is mostly a matter of how much concentrated time you’re willing to invest in deliberate practice and smart experimentation and how good you need to become to perform at the level you desire.

Kaufman’s 10 Principles of Rapid Skill Acquisition are:

1. Choose a lovable project.
2. Focus energy on one skill at a time.
3. Define your target performance level.
4. Deconstruct the skill into sub-skills.
5. Obtain critical tools.
6. Eliminate barriers to practice.
7. Make dedicated time for practice.
8. Create fast feedback loops.
9. Practice by the clock in short bursts.
10. Emphasize quantity and speed.

How do you want to change in 2014?

The post Three Approaches to New Year’s Resolutions appeared first on Chris Morton.

The life of prayer doesn’t start from scratch. The wish upwards is evidence of a readiness to pray. But how do we get from wish to prayer? How do we get the elusive, wispy, insubstantial wish embodied into actual prayer?

…the simple truth is we’ve oriented our lives around other practices. We’ve already created a form for our lives and have conformed our living to work deadlines, the pace of parenting, school schedules, media rhythms, and soccer practices. These can be good, and yet the pattern of this world can sabotage a life of prayer—and to live without prayer is to be deformed, no longer conformed to Christ.

But all is not lost. We’ve at least shown the capacity to form some habits, to practice regular routines. The beginnings of a healthy life of prayer are sometimes found in understanding the habit or practice-nature of much of the Christian life.

….Each day of prayer contains a number of different elements— an invitation into God’s presence, times of quiet, Scripture, free prayer, a set prayer, and a closing blessing. All of this is meant to be experienced as prayer. We may not be used to this way of praying, but think of it as an extended conversation with God—God invites you to be with him; you quietly enjoy his presence, listen to his Word, and respond to him with the reality of your life; and God sends you with his blessing. (From the Introduction)

Download the entire Advent section of the book here.

The post Chillout with This Great Prayerbook for the Rest of the Year appeared first on Chris Morton.

Let’s also say that you could make a nice dish to take with you, for about $3 a day. If you packed a lunch, just two days a week, 50 weeks a year you would save $500.

What would you do with $500?

I love the sound of this, but my mobile lifestyle made it impossible to have anything except room temperature soup or sandwiches. Until I met Mr. Bento.

Mr. Bento is an insulated “lunch jar.” It combines the methodology of Bento boxes with power of a thermos. I’ve been using it for a week. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Opening Mr. Bento is like opening a Matryoshka doll. Inside you find four smaller containers. Here’s where the magic is…or at least where it’s supposed to be. The largest container is in the middle, and it features a thick lid for further insulation. The idea is that you put hot stuff on the bottom and keep cold stuff on the top. The result is that you get an simple way to carry and keep warm a lot of food.

Five Tips for using Mr. Bento

1. Use boiling water to heat the bottom of the jar.
2. Get your hot food really hot.
3. Use the lid as a bowl to mix two dishes.
4. Some heat will seap up from the bottom, so don’t be surprised if your cold stuff is a little warm in places.
5. It’s more than one meal, but not enough for two.

You can purchase Mr. Bento for about $40 on Amazon.

The post How to save $500 with Mr. Bento appeared first on Chris Morton.

Fall also brings a twinge of guilt. With the end of the year approaching, I can’t help but think about how my New Years Goals have panned out.

Back in January, I publically stated four goals:

• Become a Morning Person
• Create a Regular Devotional Pattern
• Write 200 Words a Day
• Read 40 Books.

Fast forward ten months. I’m still not a morning person, although I’ve had some great mornings. I have done a lot of writing. I’ve had some great devotional times. I’m around 30 books right now, so it is still possible.

Why have I not succeeded at my New Years Goals?

1. I didn’t have the structures needed to pull them off.

File this one under “you should have taken your own advice.” Goals seldom happen out of pure willpower. I wish I had created systems to help me wake up in the morning or pre-purchased books on my reading list. The likelihood of accomplishing a goal is directly correlated to the structures you create to support them. I am contemplating how to do this in the last two months on 2013.

2. Life gets in the way.

I found myself unemployed this past Spring. For a little while, I was able to remain focused. But quickly I was awash in worry, and my focus drifted. Goals, like everything else in life, are reliant on our ability to manage our emotions.

3. Relationships change your goals.

Until the age of 31, I’ve more or less managed to remain single. Then, about six months ago, a wonderful woman came around. Because my life is better with her around, I make spending time with her a priority. If you are going to make a time-oriented goal, factor in the need to share your time others.

4. A year is a long time.

When I originally chose The Mountain Goat This Year as my 2013 theme song, I was thinking it would be a year of gritting my teeth to take on significant goals. I had no idea that it would be much more complicated than that. Besides going freelance and dating, I’ve also helped launch a new church. None of this was on my radar in January. Yearly goals are good, but they should be regularly reevaluated in light of reality.

How have you done on your goals for 2013?

The post Four Lessons Learned from Revisiting My New Years Goals in October appeared first on Chris Morton.