Conditions for Be(com)ing provide prompts for returning to the work of becoming.

Time these days frequently feels like an obstacle, an enemy to vanquish in the work of transcending or escaping limits. And it’s true: time is the absolute constraint on our lives. The speed at which our hours pass, the rapid cycling of years, feels both commonplace and surprising. Not to mention: we have no idea when our years will end, but that they end is no surprise. We feel the boundary of time every day.

Time is a condition of our becoming in that it brings us to make choices, to narrow the fields in which we will live, work, play, and relate to one another. We can either rage against the dying of the light, or we can make friends and collaborate with this reality.

It may help to understand time as three different layers: the macro, meso, and micro. Most productivity advice implicitly holds all three, without always making clear which layer does what work in your life. Talking about why, what, and how helps us notice and do particular things at the appropriate layer.

Macro is the lifetime layer. It holds our purpose, direction, and values: the stars by which we steer our lives. Some find this in a faith tradition; others find it in a set of fundamentals or principles. The macro layer is the long view, the higher vision. It allows us to be reflective and divergent, seeing what’s possible before narrowing anything down. What lives within this layer changes slowly and provides you with a lodestone for your journey. Advice and practices that focus on “finding your why” live in this layer.

Meso is the seasonal layer. This could be months or years shaped by the commitments you’re carrying or considering. It holds rhythms like a new professional role, school schedules, or a kid’s sports season. It’s where you discern which opportunities are actually yours to take, which projects get built and when. Things change seasonally (hopefully proactively). Strategy, habits, and commitments live in this layer. When we talk about “what,” we’re talking about the structures and commitments that hold your life for a limited period, that reflect how you’ve chosen to live out your “why.” Tactics and techniques that focus on project management work at this layer.

Micro is the immediate layer. The weeks and days that get all of your energy, that sometimes seem like the whole of life. Choices here reflect the macro and meso layers: what you’ve decided to say yes and no to, how you practice staying present to what’s in front of you. Changes happen quickly here, and sometimes we respond without remembering our why and our what. Many productivity tools and techniques such as to-do lists, time blocking, and distraction management work at this layer.

These three layers of why, what, and how aren’t separate management problems. They’re meant to stay in conversation with each other.

When you’re lost or scattered in the day-to-day, that’s not a micro problem to solve with better task management. It’s a signal to scale back up to macro and re-clarify what you’re actually oriented toward. And once you have that clarity again, you scale back down: the vision has to inform this week, this hour, or it isn’t doing anything.

You’re not working with three separate tools, but rather, one instrument that you keep tuning: asking, at any given moment, which layer you’re actually operating on, and whether the frustration or stagnation you’re feeling belongs there, or on another layer.

Sometimes it feels like we should make these choices once and be done forever. Communicating across layers takes energy and time. But it’s this back-and-forth conversation that creates who you’re becoming. Discerning your why, what, and how invites a constant return to the practice of listening to your life and noticing what it tells you.

Let’s be hopeful, creative, and wise—together.

Shalom,

Plant CEDAR in Your Daily Routines is my contribution to that work. It’s a self-paced course with a guide and a workbook, designed to help you gain clarity on where you experience frustration, confusion, and procrastination in the practices, habits, and tools that comprise your routines. In doing so, you can cultivate rhythms of listening, growing, and doing in your daily life.

Though self-paced, the course is designed to unfold over five weeks, 10-15 minutes per day. Over those five weeks, you’ll learn about each stage of CEDAR and the five key skills that will enable you to make effective changes in your habits or tools. Each day, you’ll engage the process of

• collecting information about how you currently utilize habits and tools,

• explore what’s not working for you at the moment,

• discern how you can improve a key skill by identifying your desired results,

• act by writing down the changes that you want to make in that stage,

• and reflect on what you’ve learned that week.

By the end, you will have created your own “outline of practice” to implement immediately, one that encapsulates your vision for strengthening the habits and tools that make up your daily routines.

Though the course focuses on personal productivity, CEDAR is a framework that applies to many areas of life: research, decision-making, creative making, and more. It’s also a practice of attention: learning to notice what’s in your life, naming it honestly, and befriending it with compassion and consistency. It’s about connecting with who you are right now, and with the person you want to become over time.

When you’re ready for that practice, you can click the button below to purchase Plant CEDAR in Your Daily Routines.

Purchase Plant CEDAR

Let’s be hopeful, creative, and wise—together.

Shalom,

How can you listen to your life so that you can grow into your truest self and do your most significant work in the world?

By paying attention to the tools you use to do that work, day in and day out. Tools exist to extend who you are into the world and help you do the things that only you can do.

Our tools support our work - not the other way around. But too often we get into the trap of “well, I’ve invested in this tool, so now I have to keep it up” or “I don’t even know why I’m using this tool this way, but I don’t know what to change.”

Additionally, tools are never neutral; they reflect the ethos, intents, and goals of their makers, the ways in which those individuals construe the world and why it exists.

When we use those tools, those implicit perspectives shape how we move through the world: what we conceive as possible, likely, or valid. It’s an inescapable reality of being homo faber: human makers.

You can use your tools, or your tools will use you.

So how do we make good changes to our toolkit?

That’s what this guide exists to help you figure out. By articulating and evaluating the digital and analog tools you use regularly, you can:

• reduce “shiny tool syndrome,”

• identify a clear purpose for each tool in your toolkit, and

• choose your best tools for doing what matters most to you.

If you want to see the tool in action, check out this video!

When you’re ready to audit and define your best tools for your most significant work, just tap the button below to get your workbook!

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More prompts for returning to the work of becoming.

Conditions for Be(com)ing

Let’s be hopeful, creative, and wise—together.

Shalom,

“My concern is we’re going to hit December and I’m going to hate myself again.”

Rachel said this in August, looking ahead at three months of overlapping soccer schedules, cross country meets, birthdays, and holidays. She could see it coming—the moment when she’d need gifts and plans and mental space but wouldn’t have any capacity left to create them.

She’d been here before. We all have.

The question isn’t whether chaos arrives. It’s whether we planned for it when we still had the bandwidth to think.

The Problem with Most Planning Systems

Here’s what typically happens: We identify something that needs doing. We add it to a list. We work on it when we have time. It stays on the list. We work on it more. Months pass. It’s still on the list. We feel vaguely guilty about it but also aren’t sure if it needs doing anymore. We keep working on it occasionally. It never quite finishes.

Welcome to zombie project management.

These undead projects consume mental energy without ever releasing you. They make you the person everyone asks about dinner plans or curriculum schedules or birthday logistics. They create decision fatigue at exactly the wrong moments—when you’re already maxed out and can’t think clearly.

Most planning systems fail because they assume consistent capacity. They give you elaborate workflows for ongoing project management. But if you’re reading this, you probably don’t need help managing projects—you need help deciding which projects to kill and which to actually finish.

You need a way to think through a project once, clearly, before you commit to it. And you need a way to recognize when a project has become a zombie so you can shoot it in the head and move on.

The Project Brief: Your Pre-Commitment Tool

I adapted this idea from professional creative briefs and Tara McMullin’s approach to goal-setting in What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting. It’s designed for one reason only: forcing the “can I actually do this?” conversation before you add another thing to your plate.

This isn’t project management. It’s project evaluation. You’re not maintaining this brief throughout the project—you’re using it to decide if the project deserves space in your life right now.

I’ve developed various versions of this template with clients like Rachel, and today I’d love to share it with you.

G-Docs Project Brief Template

Part One: What and Why

Before anything else, get clear on the outcome and the why.

The Outcome: What does complete look like? Not “work on Sunday school curriculum” but “Have 12 weeks of curriculum planned, with discussion questions and activities ready to go.” Not “think about Christmas gifts” but “Purchase and wrap gifts for immediate family by December 15th.”

If you can’t articulate a concrete completion point, you’re creating a zombie project.

The Why: How does this connect to your actual commitments? Not your aspirational commitments—your real ones. The things you’ve already said yes to, the people you’re already responsible for, the work you’re already doing.

Some projects are just administrative reality: you have kids in soccer, so soccer logistics must be managed. That’s fine. Name it clearly.

Other projects need stronger justification: Why this curriculum approach? Why these specific birthday plans? What makes this worth your finite energy?

If you can’t answer the why convincingly, pause. Maybe it shouldn’t be a project.

What Makes it Complete: How will you know when you’re done? What does finished look like?

Sometimes it’s binary: “Birthday party happened.” Sometimes it’s qualitative: “Kids engaged meaningfully with the material.” Name your success criteria before you start so you know when to stop.

Part Two: Stages and Tasks

Break the project into phases. Not every task—just the major stages.

This is one example taken from Rachel’s Sunday school planning:

• Stage 1: Research and reading (due: two weeks before teaching starts)

• Stage 2: Map out 12-week arc (due: one week before teaching starts)

• Stage 3: Weekly prep (30 minutes per week during teaching season)

Notice the due dates. You’re thinking ahead to when you’ll actually have capacity to do this work. If Rachel tried to plan curriculum in September when she’s driving 200 minutes a day, it wouldn’t happen. August is the window.

Within each stage, list the key tasks. Not everything—just enough to know what you’re committing to.

You can do this digitally or on paper. Don’t overthink it: we often make this too complicated.

Part Three: Resources

What do you need to complete this project?

• Financial: Do you need to buy books, supplies, tools, software? What’s the budget?

  • For Christmas gifts, name the actual amount you can spend. For meal planning, what ingredients need purchasing? Get specific.

• Time: How much time will each stage require? When do you actually have that time available?

  • Here’s where honest assessment matters. If you know September is chaos, don’t plan projects requiring deep focus for September. Slot them in August or October instead.

• People: Do you need input from others? Do tasks depend on someone else’s availability? Name those dependencies now.

• Tools: Do you need specific software, equipment, or materials? List them here so you’re not scrambling mid-project.

Part Four: Troubleshooting

There’s an old proverb about war strategy: no plan survives contact with the enemy. In this case, we are often our own worst enemy. But since we know this, we can also prepare ourselves for the low moments when fatigue, fear, and frustration hit.

Ask yourself:

• Where might I self-sabotage?

• What assumptions am I making that might not be true?

• What happens if my circumstances change mid-project?

• What’s the minimum viable version if I run out of capacity?

Rachel’s example: “What if my son gets invited to cross country the week I planned to work on this? What’s the smallest thing I can do then?”

Having a fallback plan means the project doesn’t become a zombie when life gets complicated. You just shift to Plan B instead of abandoning it halfway through and feeling guilty.

Part Five: Budget (if applicable)

For projects involving purchases, get specific about money.

Not “buy Christmas gifts” but:

• Four kids: $X per child

• Extended family: $X total

• Teachers/coaches: $X total

• Total budget: $X

• Purchase deadline: December 15th

When December arrives and you’re tired, you’re not also trying to figure out what you can afford. You’re just executing a plan you made when you could think clearly.

Part Six: Check-In Schedule

This isn’t daily project management. It’s periodic reality-checking.

Set 2-3 check-in dates between now and the project deadline. At each check-in, ask:

• Am I making actual progress?

• Is this project still necessary?

• Have my circumstances changed in ways that affect this project?

• Is this project too complex? Can I simplify?

• Should I shoot this zombie in the head and be done with it?

That last question is critical. Sometimes the best project management is recognizing a project should die.

Here’s a clip from a live coaching session with Rachel where I explain the project brief and zombie projects.

Your Three Projects

Here’s how to practice this:

Look ahead to your next big milestone–the event that you know will reroute your life for a time. Now, identify three projects that need doing.

Not ten. Not everything. Just three things that, if left unplanned, will make you hate yourself when that milestone arrives.

For each project:

1. Create a project brief from the template and fill it out

2. Schedule your stages based on actual capacity windows

3. Set your check-in dates in your calendar

4. Put the brief somewhere you’ll actually look at it during your check-ins

Then let everything else wait. These three projects get completed. Everything else either becomes a project next quarter or gets shot in the head as a zombie.

What This Honors

This system doesn’t assume you have consistent energy or predictable schedules. It assumes you’re human—with seasons of capacity and seasons of depletion.

It doesn’t demand daily project management. It asks for one clear thinking session per project, then simple evening or periodic check-ins.

It doesn’t optimize for doing more. It encourages you to finish well.

And it gives you permission to shoot zombies instead of maintaining them indefinitely.

Let me know how it goes for you.

Think back to this month’s SloDo, where you reflected on the stories you tell about your capacity, energy, and organization. Think also about anything that resonated for you in reading this month’s Deep Dive. Use this worksheet to take notes!1

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More prompts for returning to the practice of becoming.

Conditions for Be(com)ing

Let’s be hopeful, creative, and wise—together.

Shalom,

1

Reflection worksheet!

Worksheet R21

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Imagine an object sitting in your living room. It’s not a new object; in fact, it’s been there since you moved in. But what with one thing and another, it’s moved to the periphery of your consciousness. You’ve learned to move around this object, to adjust your stride and how you place yourself and other objects around it. It’s simply there.

Until a new friend comes over one day, points, and goes “Hey, what’s this? I’d love to know the story of this!”

And suddenly, that object takes over your living room, and you wonder how you ever ignored it.

Purpose, you may have guessed, is like that object. It lies at the center of our lives, often subconsciously. It serves as a subterranean trove of images, impulses, phrases, and beliefs that we carry within, only vaguely understanding how they shape and motivate us. And yet, that subterranean trove provides such structure and stability to our lives that it can feel a bit scary to “pull back the curtain” and examine it so closely.

Now that we’ve turned a spotlight on the concept of purpose, let’s have a conversation with ourselves about what we mean when we talk about “the purpose of our lives.”

Think back to this month’s SloDo, where you reflected on how someone else’s sense of direction revealed something about your own sense of purpose. Think also about what resonated for you in reading “The Purpose-Focused Life.”

Now, let’s have a conversation with your responses. Just as in any conversation, we have partners who help us discern and decide what we really mean by what we say, and who challenge what we do in light of that.

Discern

What is “this”?

• Can you describe what you mean when you say “purpose”?

• Does a destination come to mind? This could be a kind of lifestyle, or vocation, perhaps a community legacy.

• Does a standard come to mind? This could look like a faith tradition or philosophical commitment.

• Does a filter come to mind? This could like career choices you would (or wouldn’t) make, places you inhabit, people with whom you surround yourself?

• When your “someday” life comes to mind, what does it look like?

• Envision your home and its location. Think about your activities and friends, your yearly and daily rhythms in this place.

• What decisions and actions make that possible?

• What motivations would lead you to these choices?

• What does this reveal about how you understand the concept of “purpose,” and more specifically, how you apply it to your own life?

Decide

As you excavate, ask yourself:

• Where did I learn this?

• Is this still true?

  • If not, what needs to change?

• How could I change it?

  • If so, how do I live it better?

Do

As you move through your day, ask yourself:

• How do my actions express my purpose?

• What actions tell me I’m aligned with my purpose?

• What actions tell me I’m diverging from my purpose?

• Do I like the purpose that I’m pursuing today?

Feel free to take this conversation slowly. Answer a question a day, a question a week, if you want. This conversation unfolds over a lifetime, and if it’s one you haven’t had for a while, use these questions to become reacquainted with yourself.

These questions can also serve as a regular orientation practice: try them during a quarterly check-in, or an annual reset. See how your days grow your life.

Let me know how it goes for you.

More prompts for the practice of becoming.

Conditions for Be(com)ing

Let’s be hopeful, creative, and wise—together.

Shalom,

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