The Daily Saint

Podcast #6: MobileMe, Events Calendar & a Worthy Cause

Notes from today's podcast:

1. Apple's MobileMe: this alternative to Google (Gmail, Docs, etc.) provides a rich feature set for the Apple faithful
2. Monks: my visit to the Abbey of Gethsemane was inspiring to say the least.
3. GTD: check out Robert Scoble's interview with David Allen on Fast Company TV
4. Compassion: I'll be providing contact information for The Catie Fund in the next week.  This worthy cause will help a family with a seven year old with cancer.

Enjoy the podcast!

Excellent List of Productivity Blogs

Dustin Wax, contributor at LifeHack, provides this excellent list of productivity blogs.  TDS has been included and finds itself among an impressive group of people. I find this list to be authentic and personal- Dustin does a great job of adding commentary (wait till you read #9) for each blog unlike some other lists which have come out recently which solely look at Technorati scores.  Thanks Dustin for the solid work!

Fast Company TV: Focus on Productivity Principles

I stumbled on this through Fast Company TV. Robert Scoble interviews Matt Rissell, CEO of TSheets, an iPhone app that is pretty darn exciting.

The Productivity of Protest

In case you missed this, Catherine Doherty, one of the great women authors and mystics from this past century, is making headlines.  To be more precise, her devotees are the ones stirring things up.

Doherty's followers are returning the famed Order of Canada medal that Doherty received- in protest.  As Canadian officials recently awarded the same medal to a noted abortionist, Doherty's community decided to make a statement by returning her award to the Canadian government.  An interesting form of peaceful protest.

I imagine that Doherty is slightly amused and saddened by all of this.  A woman of great decency and courage, her heart must be heavy at the thought of Canada's slip in judgement.  Still, good can come from bad and her followers creative action is a sign of the legacy left by Doherty.

New Definitions of Work-Life Balance?

Photo by Gilest

I love the concept of work-life balance.  Putting it into practice, now that's where things get difficult. 

Difficult, but not impossible.  Julie Mortgenstern, who writes alongside David Allen at Business Week offers this as fresh insight:

"Work-life balance is not about the amount of time you spend working vs. not-working. It’s more about how you spend your time working and relaxing, recognizing that what you do in one fuels your energy for the other."

What she's really saying is what Pope Paul VI called for in the late 1960's.  He coined the phrase, "unity of life" and he meant to encourage folks to see their work and personal values as integrated one with the other. 

One of the tragedies of the entire Bill Clinton scandal was not so much what he did (although hardly commendable).  Rather, it was the paradigm that he promoted: private life and public life as separate entities.  I have heard many of my students over the years buy into this gospel- i.e. "what I do in my own time is my business and not yours!"  Both true and false.

So, what is work-life balance?  Simply put, work-life balance is the art of maintaining the integrity of both your labor and your love.  Someone once said that a job is what you're paid for and a vocation is what you're made for.  Now that's work-life balance.