Evaluations!

I am a sick man.  I admit it.  Whatever I do....whether professional, ministerial, or personal.....the activity is never over until I have had time to sit down and do a thorough evaluation of it.  Have we just talked on the phone?  I'm probably sitting at my desk wondering if my message was clear or if I sounded friendly enough.  Did you just hear me play a Sunday morning offertory?  While you have moved on to listening to the minister, I'll take a few moments and evaluate how I played and wonder what I can do to engage you more the next time so you'll talk to your neighbor less.  (By the way, that is really a pet peeve of mine!  Now that THAT'S off my chest, let's move on.)  For better or worse, evaluations are a part of my daily life.  When I keep them in check, I believe they are a valuable tool that enables me to rise to new levels of excellence.

Who doesn't want to get better at whatever they are doing?  If you're going to do something, do it well! As a result, I have spent a large portion of my day evaluating some recent endeavors.  This morning was spent reflecting, evaluating, and writing about my recent family vacation.  To tell you just how "sick" I am, I have a folder ready to be filed that has a 5 page report detailing the week's events and my personal feelings about each thing.  The next two pages are a line by line evaluation of our spending by day and by category.  I tell you, it is a "sickness!"  But it also tells me a lot about what worked and didn't work for everyone involved in the trip and will be very valuable as I begin to plan next year's vacation.

This afternoon saw the bigger evaluation taking place;  I finally put to paper my final thoughts on this year's Music Camp.  It's all been brewing there in the deep recesses of my mind for the past two weeks.  The report is very concise and has been thought about in detail.  It's not a place to praise the show's success.  It is a record of my feelings, frustrations, and thoughts about how to improve the experience (for the kids as well as me) next year.

I don't constantly return to these evaluations though.  More than anything, they provide me a method of getting everything out of my head and allowing the event to have a sense of finality.  Once I commit it to paper, I know that I don't have to hold on to the information any longer and can begin to give that brain room to other things that are demanding my attention.  (My sincerest thanks to Getting Things Done by David Allen for revealing the power of this process.  If you haven't read the book and struggle with personal management or procrastination, it is a must read!  You probably won't use everything there, but it will definitely get you thinking about how you run your life.)  Now when a question arises about the event, I have a report to refer to.  Is it all inclusive?  Not by any means!  It simply contains the information that is important to me about the event at the moment.  Will anyone else read the report?  That depends.......Reports about vacations may be read by others who went with me (especially if they will be traveling with me again in the future) so they can add their notes as well.  Most evaluations are strictly intended for my eyes and reference alone.  That allows me the security to be honest and frank without having to worry about it being appropriate for public consumption.

Most of my written evaluations are about recurring events:  annual musicals, family vacations, professional presentations, and college classes.  As I prepare to begin working on the next one, I'll normally go back and read the file, making notes of things I don't want to forget to consider in the new folder that is being created for the new event.  The evaluations don't feel like passed judgments, but rather personal reminders of lessons learned along the way.

It would seem that this would create a lot of paper to store.  At this point it hasn't, but I've only been this thorough with it for about 7 months.  All of my folders are taking up half a drawer in a small two-drawer filing cabinet. All files -- personal, professional, and ministry -- are kept together and are organized alphabetically. My plan, as David Allen suggests, is to purge the files annually in order to keep things under control and make sure that my filing system remains pertinent rather than an organized trash bin.  Thankfully that process will happen in January when things tend to slow down in all areas of life.

Just so no one thinks my life is completely organized, I'll just tell you that the creative side of me completely fights against all of this organization!  My musical scores and reading material are an absolute disaster and spread around 2 rooms on every available surface...including the floor!  Why don't I organize it as well?  Every time I try I become completely overwhelmed and can't get a clear vision of an operative final product, so I decide to avoid it.  At least in its current state, I have a general idea of which stack I need to go to for which piece of music.  (When I'm truly courageous, I'll post a picture of the nightmare that is my music library.  It's not a pretty sight to behold!)