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Mark Eastman

How Do You Stay the Course in Times of Confusion?

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It Requires a Clear Understanding of Your Compass

The year of 2020 has certainly had it’s share of confusion. It seems to be the focus of many, if not most, conversations. I’m big on talking through things. It’s a great way to process your thoughts. In essence that’s what these posts are…me thinking through my thoughts.

As you sort through the chaos it is imperative to be clear about where you’re going.

Having a clear understanding of where you’re headed will help you focus on which direction to go. In Sunday’s message Rev. Reece told a story about when he was playing high school basketball. He said that he got the ball and was headed toward the goal. He was getting around the opposing team; the crowd was yelling…he was going to be a hero and score a goal. It wasn’t until after the shot that he realized it was the wrong goal.

In Dave Ramey’s Financial Peace University, he has the audience stand up and close their eyes. He then asks them to point north. When they open their eyes, people are pointing every different direction. It was clear that some did not know where north was. Then with a compass Dave shows them true north.

Going south can get you to your destination, but it’s the long way around.

We need to know where we are going and determine the best way to get there. It’s important to periodically pause and assess where you’re headed and make course corrections as needed.

There currently seems to be more confusion than normal. I’ve heard it said numerous times that “I’ll be glad when things get back to normal”. I would contend that this is normal. Not that the current situation will be here forever…it won’t.

Things are constantly changing. Look back over your life. The older you are the more change you’ve experienced.

Change is normal.

In Hebrews 10:19-25 it points out that when Christ died that the curtain in the Most Holy Place was torn. This let’s anyone who wants to come into the presence of God. We are told to “trust in God to do what He promised. …to show each other love, to do good deeds…to meet together and encourage each other.”

Don’t let things as they are today, get you down. They will change. Acknowledge change as a part of life, understand it and make adjustments as needed to stay on course. Check your compass and keep moving forward following the true north.

How to Price a Construction Project So That it’s a Win-Win

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It Will Require a Change of Mind

When pricing a construction project, the terms most commonly used are – estimate, time and material, cost plus. These processes can work when pricing a construction project but are vague about what the final price is going to be. They are more contractor focused.

An estimate is just that…an estimate. It is an approximate calculation of the value for time needed and material to be used. I don’t think you would by a truck based on an estimate. You would want to know what you were paying and what you were getting.

Time and material, is what it says. It is a price based on the time spent and the material used with a markup added. This process also leaves the final price to be paid by the customer as an unknown until the end.

Cost plus is similar to time and material in that it is a percentage added to the actual cost for the contractor for doing the work.

As common as these ways of pricing construction projects are, too often they leave the customer feeling cheated. They thought they were getting their project done for ‘this price’ and it ended up costing more.

It’s a problem when the final price ends up being more than the customer expected.

I don’t think construction contractors intentionally go out and get projects at a low price and then do more work using more expensive materials with their end goal to be a jacked-up price. Quite often customers add things through out the process, unaware of the affect these changes are having to the price of the project.

There is a better way of giving customers a price for their project than guesstimating, but it’s going to require a paradigm shift.

A paradigm is a pattern, a model, a representation of the mental image you have in your mind. I first became aware of the term “paradigm shift” through a story in Steven Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

“I was on a subway in a very large metropolitan city. It was Sunday morning, quiet, sedate. When a bunch of young kids came running into the subway car and their father followed. He sat near me and the kids went crazy on that subway, running up and down, turning people’s papers aside, just raucous and rude. I’m sitting there thinking, ‘I can’t believe this, their father does nothing!’

After a few minutes…, ‘Sir, do you think you could control your children a little? They are very upsetting to people.’

‘Oh yeah.’ He lifted his head as if to come to an awareness of what was happening. ‘Yeah, I don’t know. I just guess I should. We just left the hospital. Their mother died just about an hour ago and I guess they don’t know how to take it and frankly I don’t either.’”

Can you say paradigm shift?

What if you had a way to give your customers a clear description of the work you were going to do and an accurate price for doing that work while still making a profit? This would be a win for them and a win for you. It might require a change in your way of thinking. It might take a paradigm shift of your own.

There is such a system. It’s called a proposal. A proposal will give your customers an understanding of what their project includes, how it’s going to be done and what it’s going to cost. It gives them the peace of mind they deserve. They are the ones writing the check after all.

A proposal done right is your secret weapon.

Providing proposals to your customers will separate you from the competition. It will increase the number of profitable projects and happy customers.

You might wonder what it takes to do a proposal. You can learn more about proposals in these previous posts.

            The Bulk of the Communication Responsibility Lies on the Contractor

            How to Build a Better Proposal

            An Overview of the Blueprint for Building a Better Proposal

            How to Make Sure You Don’t Overlook Something

            How to Prepare A Construction Scope of Work

            How to Price a Construction Project Proposal

            How to Put the Pieces of the Construction Proposal Together

            The Conclusion of the Construction Proposal is the Contract

Get your own Blueprint for Building a Better Proposal.

A Hug Will Make It All Better

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There’s Hope in a Hug

Last week I wrote about struggles of life…loss is one of the biggest. Losing can be; divorced parents, a spouse leaving, a child moving away, or the death of someone close. Grief is the response to loss, particularly someone or something to which a bond was formed.

Comfort that can be found on God’s lap when we’re grieving.

We all grieve death in different ways. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. It’s harder for some than others. We each have to do what works best for us.

The important thing to remember is that grief pushed down inside and left to fester will become an infection that will eat from the inside out, if not dealt with.

Like any other injury the healing will hurt but is worth the pain in the end.

Prolonged or extreme grief often comes out of a feeling of hopelessness. The sense that things will never be right again. This feeling is certainly understandable but doesn’t have to be the end. There is hope!

Christians have the comfort of knowing that death is not the end. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11 we read that there is more to come after this life. My grief comes from not having shared this message with others before it was too late.

Hugs have the same healing power as a lap.

One of the best ways to share hope is through hugs. This doesn’t even have to be a physical hug. We can hug others through a kind word or action as well. We can share God’s hugs here on earth.

It’s like there’s some magical transference of hope with a hug.

I’m looking forward to having God’s arms wrapped around me and Him whispering in my ear. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT.

There’s Enough Time to Do Everything You Should

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You Can Do Anything You Want, You Just Can’t Do Everything

There are so many things to do and never enough time to do them all. This a common battle. The problem isn’t time it’s the long list of things we’re attempting to do.

We’ve been given enough time to do everything we are supposed to. God built the world and everything in it in six days. We’ve been given those same six days. Granted, building the world is a lot…we just need to remember that we’re not God.

The key is getting clarity about what we are and aren’t supposed to do.

Deciding what things we’re supposed do is the real fight. Especially for people with a servant’s heart. There are so many important and valuable things that need to be done and we want to do them all.

It’s not our responsibility to do everything.

I struggle with knowing what I should do and what to say no to, but I continually improve. My system for planning and scheduling is huge for helping me with this. Over the past six weeks I’ve written about how I schedule and plan what I will do.

  • How to Get Control of Your Life – There’s no simple, one size fits all, magic app for tracking things and budgeting time. You need to find or design a system that works for you.
  • Writing it Down Makes it More Real – It is easy to find ourselves drifting. We need a clear path to a target. When it is written down, I’m more accountable to myself.
  • How I Use Outlook to be Better Organized – Allotting time to things that are on the list gives a time parameter each task will need. It increases the focus for completing them and gives a visual of the progress.
  • Putting the Right Pieces in the Right Places – Even though multi-tasking has been a popular idea; I would argue that we can’t do focused work on more than one thing at a time. Pick one piece and focus on putting it in place.

The real struggle with scheduling and planning is in prioritizing.

This is the tricky part. What is the most important thing I should do and when? The way I’ve been able to determine this is to ask my CEO (God) and board of directors (the people close to me that I trust). If you will ask, you will get clarity. Satan loves keeping us confused.

The more unclear we are about our direction the less we accomplish.

Clarity is a process, not the magic snap of fingers. Opening our mind to the right directions and taking action moves us toward achieving the things that we were put here for. This is not an easy process, but one that’s worth all the effort required.

You have plenty of time to do everything you’re supposed to do. Not everything you want to do. Having a system for planning and scheduling will make the process easier and relieve some of the pressure.

Being a Child of God Shows Us How to Live

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It’s Up to Us to Do It

Living can be hard. We all experience times of difficulties and feelings of being alone or unwanted. Wouldn’t it be great if when we felt this way we could crawl up on our parent’s lap and just be hugged?

Not everyone can relate to this feeling. There are some whose parents were cruel and uncaring or maybe they never knew their parents. They may not have had the earthly experience of a parent’s lap.

In 1 John 3:1-10 we find out what it means to be, “children of God”. It’s pretty straight forward in this Scripture. It starts out with, The Father loved us so much…” Some of us were fortunate enough to know what that love feels like. If not…

Our Heavenly Father’s lap is always available.

When children of God grow up, they should become parent’s for God. We can be God’s loving lap for those who need it. We can be godly parents to our children and everyone around us. This is not an age thing, but a love thing. Being a parent is teaching through example.

We’ve all been given a purpose to share with others. That purpose is needed by others. Sharing our purpose is like being a parent.

Be a godly parent to others.

If you let Him, our Father in Heaven will show you how.

You’ll Never Get the Things You Want Done…Without Being Reminded

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How “Outlook Tasks” Can Help You Accomplish This

Organization can be difficult to achieve. One monkey wrench that regularly gets thrown into the organizational machine is forgetting things. This can be costly when it’s a meeting with a customer or a deadline for a proposal that’s missed.

Too many things bouncing around in our head at one time, makes us more likely to forget things.

Over the past several weeks we’ve discussed the system I use for scheduling my time and organizing my tasks. There were two main focuses.

The reasons for having a system –

The tools I use –

Now we’ll look at the third tool – Outlook Tasks. This is a separate function from the calendar in Outlook. On the surface, using Tasks in Outlook seems redundant to having lists in OneNote.

I shared how I use OneNote for collecting and sharing information. It is great for this. It’s easier to move things around when reviewing and prioritizing lists. Not to mention you can draw, record video, record audio, and a whole lot of other things that you can’t do in Outlook Tasks.

Next was how I used Outlook Calendar to block out and schedule my time. The benefits of a calendar, whether digital or written is allotting time for tasks. One thing written calendars and Tasks in OneNote don’t do is remind you of upcoming appointments and things on the to do list that need done.

Reminders are the game changer.

In Outlook, both calendar events and tasks can have reminders scheduled…there’s some reminders now. As I writing this a reminder alarm sounded and a window popped up on the screen. Now it’s up to me to determine what to do with these reminders.

One is a recurring meeting with myself coming up in 15 minutes (snoozed it until 5 minutes before). Two are action list reminders (snoozed for 15 minutes). Any of these reminders can be snoozed for a specific period of time or dismissed to be rescheduled later.

When I’m in the middle of doing focused work like preparing proposals for construction projects or writing a blog post, etc. It’s easy for me to lose track of time and forget things. Reminders help prevent that.

Outlook Tasks will connect with the other tools in my scheduling system.

All the tools in this system have specific functions that only they serve. At the same time, they all support the other and work together. (There’s the reminder again. Am I going to snooze them again or take a break from writing? I’m going to pause my writing and come back to it. I have another meeting coming up in 30 minutes.)

Here I am, back to writing. I only have a short amount of time to write before I need to go home to watch the Camping World Truck race that’s on this evening. Another thing that’s scheduled on the calendar.

I can set reminders in Outlook Tasks to be one and done or recurring at specific times and days. I can embed links in the tasks directly to action lists in OneNote. This way when a task reminder comes up, I can open it, click on the link and go directly to OneNote to that specific list.

I know all that scheduling and planning can seem overwhelming and it can be. You can decide if or how much scheduling and planning you will do. Not doing anything will leave you drifting through life with no clear destination. Having a system in place with reminders both for prioritizing and allotting time, will help you get things done.

Are you going to be in control of your life or is it going to be in control of you?

You Can Choose to Accept Love or Not

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Just Know That Not Accepting, Makes It No Less Real

There are too many people out there who have not experienced real love. For whatever reason they find themselves in situations that may be called love but is not.

I’m fortunate to have been blessed with a loving biological as well as church family. God knows that I did nothing to deserve it. It’s part of a bigger plan that only He knows. My part in this is to share this love with others.

Love is the foundation for everything.

In Matthew 22:34-46 the religious leaders of the time had lost sight of that foundation. They had gotten caught up in the worldly perspective of the law. They overlooked the foundation the law was built on.

Not that the law isn’t important, because it is. It just isn’t the foundation. They were loving the law more than God. They were attempting to make God into their image of what they wanted Him to be. Be careful to not love the law more than God.

In Verses 37-40 Jesus says, “Love the Lord your God with all your soul, all your heart and all your mind. …Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and writings of the prophets depend on these two commands.”

This sounds a lot like a foundation.

There was a young Christian man who wanted to share his faith with others. Not being super educated or sophisticated, he was surprised when he felt lead to share the message of Christ with a brilliant local attorney.

When he attempted to share his faith, the attorney laughed at him and had an argument for every point the young man made. The young man realized he was in over his head and felt ashamed for thinking he could do this. In his shame he gave up and as he left, he said,

“I just want you to know that I came here because I love you.”

Within a few hours of the young man going home and shutting himself in his room, the attorney showed up and knocked on the door. The young man’s wife tried to get the attorney to leave, but he was adamant about speaking with the young man.

When the young man came out to speak with the attorney he said, “I suppose you’ve thought of some more arguments to prove your point.” The attorney said, “No, I just want to know more about your faith.”

The young man said, “Every time I tried to tell you, you came up with an argument that I couldn’t answer.” The attorney replied, “Yes and you came up with an argument that I couldn’t answer.”

When you said that you loved me…I couldn’t argue with that.

God is love. He saved us out of His great love. You can accept or reject it, but it doesn’t change the truth of God’s love.

You can’t argue with God’s love!

Which will you choose? To accept it or not.

Putting the Right Pieces in the Right Places

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Scheduling is Like a Puzzle…and Who Doesn’t Love Puzzles?

Scheduling and planning can be a daunting task, but don’t have to be. Each of us have control over what we do and when we’ll do it. I’ve been writing about scheduling over the past several weeks.

I started out with how to get control of your life. Next, we opened the tool box and looked at OneNote and how I use it. Then I pointed out the increased likelihood of hitting the target by writing things down. Last week I wrote about being intentional and how I use Outlook to be better organized.

This all fits together like the pieces of a puzzle.

Attitude is key to enjoying puzzles. If we approach them with dread, they won’t be much fun. However, if we look at them as a challenge and an opportunity to learn and do better…the experience will be much more enjoyable.

I’ve started really focusing on being more intentionally productive six or eight years ago. I think it started shortly after God smacked me upside the head, I don’t know for sure. What I do know was that I was tired of not getting the things I wanted to, done.

I discovered that time, like a puzzle had fixed parameters. There were a fixed number of pieces, a predetermined picture of what it would look like when it was finished, etc. The question was how to get all the pieces to fit. Once I began to see the similarities, I’ve began to develop…

a system that allows me to be productive with less stress.

A great life example of puzzles is a group activity that I had my team of three assistants do. At a monthly team meeting I dumped 300 jigsaw puzzle pieces out on the table and asked them to put them together. They had no picture of what the finished puzzle would be. They just had a pile of pieces.

As they began sorting and spreading the pieces, they realized there were twelve corners. They continued separating the pieces and finding the edges and sorting by similarities of color and design. They continued this process until they had the three separate 100 piece puzzles finished.

There were several lessons learned that day that correlate with scheduling:

  • Every piece has a place in the puzzle, but some have higher priorities than others. Some things have deadlines or are scheduled meetings that involve others. You can decide what pieces are the corner pieces and can’t be moved around.
  • There are a fixed number of pieces per puzzle. Trying to squeeze those 300 pieces into one puzzle wasn’t going to work. The pieces were looked at, determinations were made and they were sorted accordingly. There are a fixed number of minutes in each day. There are a limited number of things you can do in 24 hours. If you try to put in more things than will fit it just won’t work.
  • It doesn’t matter how fast you want the puzzle finished; you can’t put the piece in any faster than is physically possible. Things often take longer than we think or want. If you haven’t finished and you’re out of time. You either have to quit and come back or reschedule the next thing. You can decide.
  • A big pile of pieces can be overwhelming. Quit thinking about the big pile and just focus on one piece at a time. Don’t let your to do list overwhelm you. Prioritize it and work on the first next thing.

The key to unstressed productivity is knowing yourself and being intentional with your plan.

Getting the pieces of your life to fit into place is like doing a puzzle. It is only stressful if you let it be. You have control over how to put your puzzle together. Remember to have fun with your puzzle…it’s up to you.

We Need to Be Intentional About This –

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Who We Are and What We Do

We may never know what affect we have on those we encounter…good or bad. This is why it is so important to be aware and intentional about our actions.

There’s been a lot of love going around our church over the past couple of weeks. With October being Pastor Appreciation Month, there’s been many messages of thanks going in Pastor Lee’s direction. Simultaneously Pastor Lee has been sharing his appreciation of the congregation and the impact we have on each other.

This past Sunday he shared a letter written by one of the members of the church, sharing her story and the affect others in the church had on her life. More times than not, we have no idea of the impact we have on others.

We need to remember that every action has consequences…good or bad.

In Ephesians 2:8-10 we are told, “In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.” This sounds pretty clear to me. God intends for us to do good, but we get to decide if we will do it or not.

We have control over our actions. We can choose what we will do and how we will do it. This starts with figuring out who God meant us to be. Then being intentional about living in that direction.

I think more time is wasted through drifting than anything else.

Intentional action and awareness of those actions are topics that have been prevalent in my thoughts lately as well as historically. As is evident with these previous posts: (links)

Everything we do affects not only ourselves but those around us. Choices can have huge consequences. Think about how your actions affect others.

We can’t control everything, but we can control ourselves.

Live your life intentionally in the way God intended.

How I Use Outlook to Be Better Organized

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It’s All About Being Intentional

Getting organized and staying that way can be a real challenge. There are so many important things we need to do. Not to mention all the amazing things we want to do. It’s easy for the list to get so long we don’t even want to look at it.

A long list makes it hard to even know where to start.

But if we don’t write things down they’re less real and more easily forgotten. I use OneNote for keeping track of the things I need or want to do. A list is a great way to track and prioritize things.

The problem with a list is that it doesn’t block out allotted time.

This is where a calendar comes in. Whether digital or written a calendar allows you to block out a period of time for the things you’re going to do. This provides a visual restraint to an otherwise uncontrolled list.

The advantage to digital calendars is the reminders…written ones don’t do this very well. With most everyone having a smart phone in today’s world it’s much harder to forget things that need done. Digital calendars sync across a variety of devices which makes it much more difficult to forget something that’s scheduled.

This is where organization starts to get fun.

Let’s say you have a short list of 50 things to do. It’s up to you to prioritize them in the order that is relative to you and your situation. You know which ones you need or want to do first.

What if the most important thing on the list doesn’t need to be finished until the end of the day. But some of the less important things are connected to someone else’s list and they need them done first thing this morning. Or what if you are a member of a mastermind group that meets at the same time every week and that happens to be today at 11:00 AM.

How do you know what you’re going to do when?

 This is why I find my calendar to be such an important tool. I use my various lists in OneNote to prioritize. Then I look at my calendar. What things are already on there, scheduled appointments, recurring meetings, etc. With the open time left I plug in the most important things from my list. I fill the remainder of my day from beginning to end with things that I need or want to do.

This can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Fun and free time can be scheduled as easily as work.

Benefits of calendaring are:

  • It’s harder to make excuses to not do it, once it’s written on the calendar.
  • I take it more seriously; it becomes more real when it’s written on the calendar.
  • Big things become more manageable when they’re broken down into small sections of time and put on the calendar.
  • Seeing things that have been done when looking at the calendar provides a sense of accomplishment.
  • When there is a reminder that something else is starting in 30 minutes I stay more focused.

I never like to start something without being able to finish it. This makes it hard for me to stop when I’m in the middle of something. Having things scheduled tight on the calendar helps remind me that sometimes I just have to stop what I’m doing and come back to it later. It depends on it’s level of importance.

I’m more productive with a full calendar.

I push harder and focus better if I know there’s something else to do in 15 minutes. If there’s open time I take my foot off the accelerator. It’s how I get control of my life.

One of the greatest things about a digital calendar is the ability to easily move things around. Your calendar like your life is up to you. You can choose what you will do and when you’ll do it.

Just be flexibly rigid.

My go to calendar is Outlook because I love the way it connects with OneNote and syncs with my Motorola phone. Next week we’ll discuss how the Task List portion of Outlook completes this organizational system.