Distracted @ Work

The Faith @ Work blog has gone a bit quiet recently – I confess to having been focused on my daughter’s wedding (it was awesome!) This raises the question for me about distractions in general.

I don’t know about you, but I find it pretty hard to stay focused on any one thing at work. To some degree it’s a good thing – we have so many balls in the air that if we just watched one the rest would all drop. But multi-tasking and allowing distractions to take charge are not the same thing. Multi-tasking has its own dangers – to use an IT memory management analogy – we can easily end up “thrashing” – spending so much time switching between tasks that there isn’t enough time to do the tasks themselves. A bigger issue, at least once we’ve learned some basic time management techniques, is completely non-work distractions to take over.

I love sport, and the sport I love most is cricket. At any point in the day there is usually an interesting cricket match going on somewhere in the world and I confess that I often keep track of them. This actually works in my favor while it stays in control – it is a stress reliever and quick pause from intense activity. But the risk is that I get too engaged in the cricket (or currently the World Cup) and work suffers. How do I keep this in balance?

Then there are other issues and anxieties – the broken sprinkler system that caused flooding of my back yard and a neighbor’s while we were away for the wedding, for example. Or family conflicts. Or sermons to be written or church issues to be concerned about. There is a place for each of these, and keeping balance between all of the demands on my attention is a struggle. Does my faith have anything to say about all this?

I believe the spiritual fruit of self-control comes into play here (see my post from last month - http://faithatworkplace.blogspot.com/2010/05/fruit-of-spirit-work-self-control.html). Paul says “we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Even though ripped a little out of context, this speaks so well to what I need to be able to do at work. This isn’t easy, and it probably can’t be done simply as an act of the will. I need to develop the habit of seeking the release of the Spirit’s fruit of self-control, so that He in me will give me the ability to control my thoughts to focus on the Kingdom work I have been given in the workplace.

Memorandum to self: start examining distractions, offering them to God in prayer, and getting them under control by the Spirit.