18 Minutes... a Glimpse of Heaven

by Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com

18 Minutes by Peter Bregman is about reclaiming your life, creating a focus and mastering his 18 minute daily plan... getting the right things done. His plan will help you strategically structure your day so it's productive, satisfying, and a measurable step for fulfilling your focus for a year.

What's limiting you? The first step is to reduce forward momentum, slow down and start over. Pause and figure your next move. Regular rest steps are needed. We need to interrupt ourselves to create time and space to aim our efforts more accurately. Don't settle for being less than you are. It won't serve others and won't serve yourself.

Find your focus. It includes four elements... leverage your strengths, embrace your weaknesses, assert your differences, and pursue your passions. Consider the conditions of what you want to achieve, what you believe you can achieve, and what you will enjoy the most achieving. Focus the year on the things that matter to you. On the things that have specific meaning for you. Create a tunnel vision in the right direction. Failure will happen. Stay focused, learn, don't give up... it will pay off. The future is uncertain... keep moving.

Focus your year on five areas most important to you within business and your person life. Set up daily actions in each of the five areas. To get something done, decide when and where you are going to do it. Practice the three-day rule. Nothing stays on your list for more than three days. Continually clean up your list and do one of four things, do it immediately, schedule it, let it go, push it out to a someday/maybe list. Spend a few minutes at the end of each day thinking about what you learned and with whom you should connect to next.

And now, the featured section for why 18 Minutes was written.. 18-minute plan for managing your day. We start everyday, feeling we are not going to get everything done we would like to. It's good to plan ahead, create to-do lists, ignore lists, use our calendars. The hard part is execution. Everyday something gets in the road. The secret is... create a ritual. Bregman recommends we follow his ritual for managing our day. It will take 18 minutes a day.

Step 1 (5 minutes). Morning minutes. Go to your to-do list, and decide what will make this day highly successful. What can you realistically accomplish that at the end of the day you will feel productive and successful? Take the other things off your list and reschedule. Follow the three-day rule.

Step 2 (1 minute every hour). Refocus. Take one minute every hour and refocus. Set your watch or your phone to beep on the hour. This is your warning to stop, and ask yourself if you spent the last hour productively. Look at your calendar and recommit how you will use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don't let the day manage you.

Step 3 (5 minutes). Your evening minutes. Ask yourself how the day went, what you learned, who do I need to interact with? Who should I update, send an email, text... to make sure you are communicating with people.

This ritual is about getting the right things done. Done as a ritual it will increase your effectiveness in all you do... business and personal. The best skill is managing distractions. Control them and place them in proper place related to the most important activity. Resist the temptation to say yes too often, and when you say no mean it. Shorten transition times. We don't really multitask, we actually switch tasks. Some transitions take longer than others. Pick them wisely.

More from Peter Bregman at:
http://peterbregman.com/

Catching a Glimpse of Heaven by E. M. Bounds gives a thorough portrayal of the Biblical context of Heaven. Heaven will release us of all the troubles of this life. All the struggles, trials, pain, sorrow of earth will be gone. Jesus said He would go and prepare a place for us. And where He come, take us to that place, and He will be with us forever. What Jesus has done for us here, He will do for us in the other world. This rich food of Heaven has living foundations of bliss, knowledge, and light.

Life in its fullest will be there. It is an eternal life of the untold, unimagined, and brilliant glories of what is only in Heaven.

What is eternal life? Who can dream or imagine this life? Heaven has it! It will be the greatest surprise as we pass through the gates to this celestial city. We will be led to fountains of living water... a life that refreshes, blesses and satisfies the soul as water refreshes, blesses, and satisfies the body. Here is a constant unfolding of life, a life so full we are in constant state of deep joy.

Heaven will be the joy, pursuit, enjoyment and increase in life. Life in Heaven will be ecstatic delight... Mind, soul, and spirit will be widened, elevated, deepened, refined, and beautified.
And we all will be beautify... ageless, looking our best always. Christ will feed that life on the richest pastures and lead the way to the fountains of living water. "God will wipe away all tears." (Rev. 7:17)

The Power of the Spirit puts us in a thirst for Heaven. Paul longed to be there, and relented that he had work to do on earth. The Holy Spirit gives us constant tastes and visions of Heaven, until all other tastes become pall and other visions are heavy and dull. Heaven plays notes of harmony and the earth plays songs of discord.

The Power of the Spirit binds us to Heaven because Jesus is the center and glory. The Holy Spirit implants Heaven in us.The Holy Spirit in us is God's mark of ownership and security. His authority is put on us. God gives us a part of Heaven as a pledge to the full heaven when the time is ripe.

The Apostle Paul reminds us to keep pressing on to the prize waiting for us as we press on to fulfill our calling on earth to receive the great reward of Heaven... the High Calling of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is always keeping the body under control, subjection to the Spirit, so that he would not lose the incorruptible crown. Heaven is a reward. Great is your reward in Heaven. (Matt. 5:12)

Be ready for Heaven. Jesus said He will come quickly, and the reward is great according to the work we have done. (Rev. 22:12) The reward is dues paid for what we did on earth in accordance to God's will for us, and our obedience to His voice and Word. For Jesus will come with many angels, in the glory of our Heavenly Father and He will reward every man according to his works. (Matt. 18:27)

We can't imagine heaven, feel what it is really like. But it will so outclass our earthly life, we will question why we didn't focus more on our Heaven life while on earth. Things of earth are dull, compared to Heaven. Work for Heaven, invest your life assets that will convert to Heavenly assets.