Scott Cheatham’s Weblog

Urged on by this post, I’ve elected to add a new category to my blog. “Snippets” will be shorter posts perhaps digressing from my main thrust for the site.  At times, I like posting little things that are bigger than “tweets” from my Twitter account but not enough to warrant a full post (like my blog series).  My “Snippets” might be new tools I’ve used that I want to share, new music, or perhaps just some random commentary.  I will still post my regular full posts but thought I would give this a try to further stay in touch with my readers.

Have a great weekend!

My Latest Tech Toy

In this final installment in my blog series on better reading, I want to focus on some tools that you can use to make your reading more enjoyable and get more reading done faster than you ever realized.

Earlier this week, we spent time talking briefly about how to organize a reading list around books you’ll enjoy, ones that will challenge you, and ones that will grow you in your areas of need.  We also talked about how we can interact with books to make them more enjoyable.  How we can take notes, ask questions, organize great thoughts, and draw up action plans to apply what we’ve read.  There’s so much great information out there but none of it will benefit you if  you do not plan to get more books into your life.  

One way to do this is by expanding your horizons in reading.  Audio books are now more available and easier to use than ever before.  I remember just a few years ago that I would never pick up an audio version of a book just because it was clumsy to carry with you anywhere and you needed a cassette player or portable CD player to listen to them.  Books were few and most people want to travel light.  Enter the world of MP3 players.  Yes, iPods are all the rage but really all the iPods are nothing more than proprietary MP3 players that cost a lot for the bling.  I wanted something inexpensive that I would carry with me anywhere so I started a few years ago with a half-gig MP3 player that I bought at a tech store.  My youngest daughter inherited that when I upgraded to a 1-gig player that I wrote about less than a year ago.  I recently moved that player into service at the church I pastor playing music prior to worship.  Just a few weeks ago, I purchased an iPod Touch lookalike made by Sylvania.  As you can see by the picture at right, it has the same features, comes with 4-gigs of built in flash memory and is expandable with a micro SD-card (I have a spare 2-gig card that I am moving  over from my old player to make is a 6-gig model).  I bought this player for $50 at a local Big Lots and couldn’t be happier with it.  It’s loaded with several of my favorite music albums but also has 8 different audio books on it as of this writing.  I can take it with me anywhere.

The point is, you can take an 8-cd audio book with you with no clunky baggage to carry and listen to it while you walk at the park, while you shop for groceries, in the car while you drive, and at night when your eyes are tired and you just want to chill with a cup of coffee or tea and relax.  My strategy is to pick up the audio version of books that I would likely not read given my limited amount of time to commit to the task.  Many business books on management, leadership, dealing with people, and finances are all good candidates for audio books for me.  In the last two years, I’ve read about 30% more books than I would have if I had not used an audio book.  Many people will like this option because they can be doing other things while listening.

Another way (which is a bit costlier) to increase your reading is to purchase an eReader book device and read eBooks.  Amazon’s Kindle and the Sony Reader are the big players here.  I’ve written about these two elsewhere on this blog but for the purposes of this article, it’s sufficient to say that either will help you in your endeavor to read more.  Both devices are slim and lightweight, easy to carry, and hold a charge for a long period of time.  I like to travel as minimalist as possible so for me, being able to put my Sony Reader in my over the shoulder man-bag with my bible, notepad, and MP3 player makes perfect sense.  I’ve not even begun to tap the memory capacity of my Sony Reader and already have over 60 books on it.  Can you imagine carrying THAT load around everywhere?  The key point here is that if you have your reader device handy and it’s easy to take with you, you’ll read more in those smaller windows of space like when you’re eating a quick lunch, waiting at the auto shop or doctor’s office, when you have a few minutes to kill waiting for a late appointment, or when you have a few minutes down time in your home between dinner and washing the dishes!  All of those little windows add up and in time, you’ll see that you can get more reading done but the idea is to have the tools at your disposal or you won’t use them and your reading will slow down.

One final thought I have is with cost.  Books are expensive.  The ebook market has helped by reducing the cost of books and also by its nature, the cost to store them in your home.  Audio books, though small on their CD’s, can even be reduced to a simple online download to further reduce clutter and storage in your home.  In the last year I’ve sold off many of my hardback books, something I thought I would NEVER do.  But the reality is that I could use the space in my office for other things and by meticulously selling these books off, I’ve reduced my storage space and given myself a budget to buy my favorites in ebook form.  I’ve already removed one bookshelf from my office and I plan to remove two more by the end of 2010.  So there is a cost benefit to buying digital books be it audio or ebook form.  Another old friend is also available and that is your local public library.  I’m blessed to have a great library consortium and most books I want to read I can check out.  Audio books are plentiful now too and usually only require me to request them in advance so they can be delivered to my library of choice.  I’ve probably checked out over 30 audio books in the last 18 months or so and I have two on hold today!  These cost you nothing other than the investment of your time to go get them and take them back.  Used bookstores also have value when you can’t find an out of print book anywhere else.  I still will pick up the odd paper book from time to time when it’s one I really want and I know it’s out of print.  Online bookstores makes finding volumes like this easier than ever before.

Hopefully, I’ve given you some thoughts to energize your reading this summer and beyond.  Have you put a list together?  Do you know what you want to read next week?  Do you want that in traditional book, ebook, or audio form?  Do you have an inexpensive audio player to make it easier to get to your books?  Spend some time this weekend answering these questions, make your list, head to the bookstore or library (or online), and get reading!  It will be the best thing you ever do for your personal growth.

How can you grow in your knowledge and skill by reading books? On Monday, I shared with you some ideas for putting together a reading list for the summer and shared briefly the idea of note taking and interacting with a book.  But HOW do we do this?  My personal hero in the reading for growth category is a man by the name of Mortimer Adler.  Adler and Charles Van Doren were the authors of the classic work “How to Read a Book” which is still available today.  In the book, the authors distill the essence of reading for growth and how one should undertake this endeavor.  I’ll not regurgitate the text here but suffice it to say the book is a gold mine of reading competence.  Why this type of learning isn’t taught in our public schools I will never know.

To be certain, you must also read books for pure enjoyment.  Not all reading has to be taxing to your brain.  A good mystery, thriller, or comedy is always needed in your reading plan.  I drop these in from time to time but the majority of my reading is focused on growing as a pastor, leader, husband, and father.  It is there I draw nearly 90% of my reading material. So what do I do to interact with a book? How do audio and electronic books change my plans?  I’ll attempt to be brief but here goes:

When I’m reading for growth, I start by surveying the book.  I gloss over the table of contents, review the chapters, briefly look over the end pages and then see what the authors closed the book with.  In general, their closing thoughts summarize their hope for what it is you draw from the reading.  This gives you a “base” to draw from as you begin to see how chapters build on one another.  This is a very simple step and one I go through with most reading before I elect to purchase a book.

After a brief (less than 20-30 minute) survey, I read the introduction and credits to see what others are going to say about this book.  If there are blank end pages in the book, I generally prepare one with my initial thoughts of what I hope to glean from this text.  As I read, I underline and make notes in the text designed to give me ideas to review.  If it is something I REALLY want to explore, I make a note of it in the end pages and review it further after I’ve finished the book and am conducting a post reading review.  Many times, a thought you note will have a related “in text” note that refers to other books that the author consulted.  If it’s worth it, I make note of these and add them to a future “review to read” list the next time I’m in a library or book store.

If I’m using digital work, like an audio book or ebook on my Sony Reader, I use a small digital recorder in place of my pencil and end pages.  I will stop and leave myself a brief voice clip in the digital recorder to review later.  The idea here is to capture thoughts however you must do it.  Else a great thought will get left behind in the pages of the book and a post reading review will have less of an impact.

Another technique I employ is the use of “glyphs” or special notation symbols that I recognize in my own little world.  These glyphs can mean anything from “A Great Idea!” to “Not worth exploring”.  On another end page, I collect these “glyph” thoughts by page number and add them to each glyph I put on the end page.  Thus “great ideas” are collected and I can review them by page number at the end of the book.  Some glyphs challenge me to develop an action plan to execute to employ an idea shared in the book.  If so, then I can make such a plan part of my productivity work at the end of my week when I’m arranging my time for the coming seven days.  With an ebook or audio book, it’s a bit harder to organize the glyphs but a makeshift system can be made with a notecard and/or voice recorder noting the pages and “types” of headings you want to use.  My Sony reader ebook has a feature that lets me “dog ear” pages in my book as I read to I can use this method to catalog any specific notes I take.

Sometimes I question the text if I disagree with a conclusion and leave myself a note to review the ideas in other works perhaps cited by the author or ones I can find on sites like Shelfari.  These questions also become a valuable part of the text when I’m done.  This method was best summarized by others as the “SQ3R” method.  I’ve adapted it to my own reading style but essentially, the nuts and bolts of what I do can be found there.

When I’m done with a book, I let it settle for a few days before I go back to review it.  Briefly, my review encompasses going over my “glyphs” pages, putting together an action plan to challenge any questions I may have asked of the book, and applying the ideas I found most helpful.  How I do this varies but in short, this is how I review a book.  There are many other tools I can employ but I think you get the idea.

This is not something you pick up quickly.  In fact, it took me years to employ this method successfully over time.  Once again, reading for growth is a discipline and you get better the more you do it.  If you feel overwhelmed with what I’ve shared here, simply take the time to review one of these ideas and incorporate it into your reading.  The next time, add another idea.  However you do it, take the time to interact with your books.  It will change the way you read forever.

On Friday, I will conclude this series with some time-saving ideas to increase the time in your day for reading.  I hope you’ve enjoyed my thoughts on t

It doesn't matter how fast you read - just READ!

What books to do you plan to read this summer  for your personal growth? Summer is a great time to pick up the hobby of reading good books.  I’ve loved reading since I was kid and these days, I plan my reading so that I always have a good book ready when I have time.  This week, I want to spend some time talking about the discipline of reading and share some ideas from my years of experience that might help you to be a more involved and informed reader.  I’m no expert but I have gleaned some great ideas from others that I have used to effectively help me pick better books, read MORE books than I thought I ever could, and also apply what I’ve read to my life and work situation.

Pastor and Author Nelson Searcy advocates reading 40-to-50 books a year in his well done audio resource “Planning A One Year Personal Growth Plan” and I agree that is a good goal to shoot for.  But HOW do you do it?  Many reading this want to increase their reading I’m sure but when it comes time to do it, they wind up spinning their wheels and reading a book or two each year and never really feel satisfied with their effort.  So for this first part of my 3-part series, let’s look at how we can organize and plan to read more.  I promise you it will be painless.

Steve Leveen, in his book “The Little Guide to Your Well Read Life” suggests a tool to organize your bookshelves for reading.  Without being too wordy, the system basically allows you to organize your shelves by books you are planning to read, those you have read, and those you will review again after reading.  You might ask “why review?” and that I will discuss later this week.  For now, let’s just look at your plan.  Digital tools like the excellent “Shelfari” social networking site allow you to set up virtual shelves on your computer if you are space hindered in your home.  I have several shelves set up on my Shelfari site for books on my “wish list” that I want to read, those I am currently reading, and those I have read and reviewed.  Shelfari is like Facebook for bibliophiles but it is very easy to use.  The key is for you to HAVE A PLAN.  Whatever you choose to use, organize a reading list for your personal growth and then stick to it.

What should I read?  It really depends on your interests and where you want to grow in the coming months.  As a pastor, I want to continually be growing in my spiritual walk so I plan my reading by including books on Theology, Philosophy, and of course my daily Bible Reading.  As a leader, I want to grow in those areas so I include many books in that genre both Christian and Secular.  There is much to be gained from great business leaders like Ram Charan, David Allen, Ken Blanchard, and Peter Senge.  The key is when you begin to review, take notes, and apply the books to your life, then you can find ways to make the text applicable to your life situation.

Once you have your areas of interest written down, then organize a list.  Ask others who read what they are reading.  Check out the reading suggestions on sites like Shelfari.  Another good idea is to find a book of reading lists that you can review to make some initial selections.  I reviewed one by Eugene Peterson and there are many others out there depending on your interests.  Once you have some suggestions, pick a few and begin your journey.  It doesn’t have to be expensive either as many libraries carry these books and these days, you can go online to larger library cooperatives in your region an reserve the books ahead of time to check out.

In the end, your reading success or failure will be a result of your prior planning.  Plan well and you will greatly enjoy the endeavor.  Plan poorly and you will still be spinning your wheels a year from now.  As I stated, summer is good time to get into the habit of reading.  You can take it slower, enjoy your time in books, and increase your intake of good reading heading into the fall.

Wednesday in Part Two, I will discuss ways you can take notes, interact with, and apply the books that you are reading.  Until then, get planning!

David Allen’s latest book completes his well known “Getting Things Done” or GTD system.  For several years, people have raved and become almost cult-like in their following of his principles for organization and life skills.  In “Making It All Work”, Allen puts together the pieces that many felt needed a bit more explaining in his best seller.

In short, the book spends considerable time explaining the methodology behind the GTD principles.  As it nears the middle and ending, the book then shifts gears to focus areas and context.  One of the areas in the original GTD book that was mentioned was that of the different levels of focus.  Allen uses a metaphor of airplane flight to describe it.  From the ground up, you begin with your “runway” actions which are the current moment actions you need to be doing.  From there the plane climbs to 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, and then finally 50,000 feet.  At each level, specific life tasks are brought to review such as your values and principles, long range planning, short range planning, and project organization.  These are the “dreaming” type areas that many folks don’t spend too much time with but in my experience, if you do not plan in these areas, you will most certainly remain basically where you are in life maintaining but never achieving any long-range goals you’d like to.

One review I read put it best when he stated that GTD is the “action” or left brained area of execution while “Making It All Work” is the right brained or dreaming mode that you ultimately will formulate projects and then action plans from.  Well stated.  It is one reason why I liked the book.  I will admit at times I started to feel a bit disinterested because several pages of the GTD explanation were old-hat for someone who’s used the system for several years now.  But in fairness, Allen writes from a standpoint that not everyone will have read GTD so he is obligated to at least give surface level explanations for his method.

If I was recommending this book to a friend, I would suggest they first read “Getting Things Done” before trying to tackle “Making It All Work”.  For certain, you could benefit from this book not having read the other but to maximize the impact of what Allen is getting at here, you really should divest yourself of the initial information.  Besides, it’s one of the easiest and most effective systems of task execution I’ve ever used.

There are many reviews on this work that highlight individual chapters and their meanings.  I think that’s overkill but you can certainly search those reviews if you wish.  What I’m interested in here is the overall impact of the work.  In this Allen succeeds by lining out what it means to think at a higher “altitude” to plan your life and work goals in a way that gives you a clear target to work towards.  Too many times, especially in ministry circles, I see people with lofty goals but no action plan to reach them.  To write this stuff down and then organize it in ways that bring about real action seems “geek” like to them.  So be it.  I’ve committed myself to spending more time at the “altitude” levels that Allen talks of here and have set up a notebook to record my thoughts, visions, and dreams for each level.  I’ve roughly done this in the past but can see the benefit of developing project lists that ultimately bring about actions that will bring much of these dreams to fruition.

When this is accomplished and your plans are out of your head and onto paper to be organized, then the clarity of mind you will experience is something that brings a peace that you cannot imagine.  Allen calls it “Mind Like Water” but I call it “Stress Busting!”  If you are looking to organize the various aspects of your life and bring clarity and planning to your life and work goals, this book is well worth your investment of time.  Pick it up, read it, but most importantly, USE IT.

Yikes! A Large Man Coming From the Water!

This week I had the pleasure of speaking with an old friend of mine who works in youth ministry on a bivocational basis.  He is currently looking for a job as many are in this current economic climate.  As we were talking, he related a story to me about a recent discussion he had with two large churches (1000 or more in weekend attendance) about positions they were looking to fill.  In both cases, the positions were in youth ministry and were full time.  For brevity’s sake, the conversations were pretty much the same.  They had advertised the available position but what my friend said next floored me.  In one case, the church had received over 500 resumes.  In the other church’s case, it was well over 350.  850+ resumes for two positions in churches less than 90 miles apart.  Really?

I wondered aloud to my friend: “How many of those people truly were ‘called’ to that job and how many were looking to pad their resumes?”  He didn’t have a good answer but we both knew the inevitable conclusion.  In both cases, the “personnel” committees had to review these resumes and started by culling out those who had less than five years experience.  They then pulled only those who had graduate degrees (a B.A. wasn’t enough!) and they still had over 100 resumes each for their positions.

In another instance locally in my area of service, a pastor who had left a mega church (averaging 7,000+ in attendance) some four plus years ago recently pulled the plug on a church plant he started (averaging about 400 a week) so he could take a position at a large church up the road from his.  Rumors are flying in both directions and I have my private thoughts as to what led to his leaving but the question I ask is, “Was he really called to plant the church?”  The church plant tried to soldier on after he resigned several weeks back but in the end, elected to close its doors.  Apparently, too much wounding had occurred for the faithful to try to heal.  They felt it better to let the church scatter elsewhere rather than move forward.  Also, a lot of money had been spent and the “lifestyle” of this church required more funds than were coming in after the pastor resigned.

What has been lost with all of this is one vital aspect.  That is one of relationship.  What relationship does the pastor have with his people?  There’s so much more that can be written here and I think I will plan another blog series to address it.  More and more though, I’m seeing the benefits of being simple in design and function.  David Browning’s book on “Deliberate Simplicity” is an eye opener of a book that  spoke to much of what I’ve already been feeling as I see the excesses of the modern church all around me.  A few months back, I had written a series of posts on “How Much Is Too Much?” I’m still trying to find out the answer.  I think the next few years may bring me the answer I’ve been looking for.

My New Levenger Steno Pad

For years I used a stenographer’s notepad in my work as a radio news reporter.  The 6 x 9 inch size made them easier to handle than a standard size notepad.  The top spiral was also nice for a lefthander since I no longer had to fight with a left-bound spiral and the flip top made them easy to access.  The steno pad has been my pad of choice when I was a layman taking sermon notes, and even today when I travel, I enjoy the ease of slipping one in my messenger bag.

Since switching my note taking supplies over to the “Circa” system by Levenger, I’ve thought about designing my own steno pad and just buying the discs.  The ease at which Circa can be used to move notes around, add in notes from other notebooks or index cards, and archive notes in an order of my choosing made it ideal for my work.  For a long time, there were no steno size notebooks to use with this great system but now, Levenger has answered the pleas of those of us who asked for this.  At right you can see the new Levenger Steno pad, available from their online store.

I finally ordered one of these this month and couldn’t be more pleased with it.  The notebook comes with 50 high grade sheets of steno ruled paper, four plastic tabbed dividers so you can organize your work (something I never had with a spiral bound steno book), and the standard quality translucent cover that comes with Levenger’s basic Circa products.  The inside pages are exactly 6 x 9 like a standard steno pad but the bonus is that I can now remove and re-add pages as I take notes and organize them for later processing.  The notebook fits inside my Levenger Saddlebag Sling I purchased earlier this year and goes nicely with my Bible, my Sony Reader eBook, and my Hipster PDA.

Quality notebooks are hard to find anymore.  Most are made of cheap paper that doesn’t respond well to a good graphite pencil or quality pen ink.  Lower quality spirals tend to bend, misshape, and unwind easily catching inside your bag or briefcase, and they don’t look very professional either.  The Levenger Stenographer’s Notebook has a quality about it that makes it nice to take out when you’re in a meeting, in church, or even in the park brainstorming.  When you’re done with your notes, they can be easily transferred to another Circa book or archived for later use.  Your Circa notebook is always “fresh” and current when you have the ability to move things around almost effortlessly like you can with this system.

A little more than a year or so ago, I took the plunge and invested in a quality Circa desk punch so I could archive all of my notes that needed saving into notebooks and I’ve never regretted it.  My sermons and associated bible studies are all neatly preserved in Circa notebooks that I’ve constructed using this system.  Clutter is reduced and efficiency maximized when you can rearrange things.  I recommend the Circa system in general and this notebook in particular to any who would like to give it a shot.  If you are already into Circa, then this notebook will make a nice addition to your collection.

Glaspey's Latest Book

One of my favorite authors has written a handy little guide to get people to start reading their bibles again (or maybe for the very first time!).  Terry Glaspey and Harvest House Publishers have hit a home run with their “One Minute Bible Guide”.  While this might be a little too light for pastors and very serious students of scripture, the “One Minute Bible Guide” is a great resource for the laymen just getting started in the habit of learning to use their bible.  In a few short pages, Glaspey lays out good reasons for beginning the daily habit of scripture reading, provides a great overview to the bible, and also presents a nice 90-day reading plan to cover all the major themes of the bible.  

Other features of this guide include short introductions to each book of the bible; quite handy once you start reading God’s Word book-by-book, famous quotations about scripture, and a reference of other works to help you in your spiritual growth.  The “One Minute Bible Guide” is a well written, to the point, reference book that can go with you as you take your bible to church, the coffee shop, work, or the park.  It’s small size makes it easy to transport and keep with you.  There isn’t a lot of fluff here due to the size so that makes the book that much better.

Glaspey’s works on C.S. Lewis, Prayer, and Great Books of the Christian Tradtion (still available used!) are some of my favorites.  When I worked in radio, I featured him several times on my talk show and he always impressed me with his solid scholarship and good humor.  He has definitely seen the need of a usable guide to the bible that’s not so deep as to scare off the average reader yet gives enough depth for this book to be profitable for a church that wants the bible to be front and center with it’s people.  I am currently looking into ways we can feature this work as part of our overall discipleship program at the church I now lead.

If you buy the book at your local bookstore, it’s only $5.99 so why not pick one up and check it out.  When you’re done with it, share it with a friend!  Bible reading today has reached epidemic lows, even among church going Christians.  If we are going to stem the tide of biblical illiteracy, we need to find ways to get the bible back in the hands of our people and actually help them READ IT!  Glaspey’s book will go a long way to helping in this endeavor.  I recommend it highly to you.