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Posts from the ‘Daily Dose 31-40’ Category

Nov 29

Daily Dose 40: Attend

Here is where to begin reading Daily Dose 31-40 in order.

When we attend an event, we make any necessary preparations (mark the calendar, change clothes, gas the car,  leave in time) to get where we need to be to participate. When we attend to our children, we focus on what they need and do it without distraction. Soldiers called to attention, put themselves in an alert and ready position to hear actively and to respond immediately to whatever they are ordered to do. Students attend class, which should mean complete preparation out-of-class of anything needed to participate competently in class, rather than (too often) being marked physically present in class, even though the mind, engagement, and focus are elsewhere and course work is incomplete or undone. Read more

Nov 28

Daily Dose 39: Automate


When we hire the appliance repair man or the car mechanic, the doctor or the consultant, what are we paying for? Sometimes we are paying for their specialized tools and their access to replacement parts. Sometimes we are paying for the concentrated practice that has made them an expert. Always we are paying for their ability to quickly assess and diagnose what needs attention. In a word, we are hiring expertise, and at a hundred dollars an hour, the operative word is quickly. In our homes, and personal lives, we are (or ought to be) the experts who must quickly assess whether automation or attention is needed. Read more

Nov 27

Daily Dose 38: Cannon Balls and Sand

How about another personal favorite Picture for My Mind?

C. H. Spurgeon wrote in his Sword and Trowel of a man filling a large box with cannon balls. Needless to say, it did not take too many balls before the box was full. Not so, says Spurgeon. The box would only be full of cannon balls, but it was not truly full. The space around the cannon balls could be filled with shot (think BBs, modern America), and when no more shot would fit, then a quantity of sand could still be poured into the nooks and crannies. There is an infinite point-number line-math lesson in there somewhere!  Read more

Nov 26

Daily Dose 37: Apprentice

Years ago, a young man “made himself” by being apprenticed to a skilled craftsman. Over many years he developed deftness with both the tools and the skill habits of the craft, starting at the bottom and bit by bit adding to his store of skill and knowledge by doing whatever the craftsman needed done.

Now a worthy craftsman knew how to bring the apprentice along step by step, explaining and showing him how to use the tools, and how to perfect the skills of the craft, from the basics through the trade secrets of success: how to stoke the fire with different woods and ores to build a hotter flame, how much time to temper the silver or the glass, how to tell when the bark was ready for carving. Subtle, expert skills became accomplished over the years, until the apprentice’s eyes, hands, and work habits became as accomplished as those of the craftsman. Read more

Nov 25

Daily Dose 36: Concentration Cycles

Let’s see, we are supposed to be automating routine tasks and attending to exceptional ones, making a process for everything, organizing files, and never neglecting a single thing we think is important (even if we never realized how much work it would be to do….) Read more

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