Group, Ungroup, and Move to Front

     As an English/Communications major in college, I took some graphic design classes. Graphic design was definitely not high in my skillset, but it was interesting to learn how to use different features in Photoshop and Illustrator (skills I’m pretty sure are next to useless now because it’s been so long since I’ve used either program and I’m sure both have changed substantially in the last ten years). And yet, while the programs have changed, I know at least a few features carry over into other programs I do use frequently. As I create images with quotes and flyers to post on our church’s social media pages, I find myself especially using the group, ungroup, and move to front features.

    Grouping, ungrouping, and moving to front (or to back) feature simply refers to how you collect different images on a screen. If you have a flyer with three different images overlapping (think background, bright blue box, and then a quote), you can arrange the objects (images) so the blue box doesn’t cover up the text. You can group all the images together so they move as one object or you can ungroup them so you can move them one at a time.

    I think we have the option to group, ungroup, and move things around in real life, too. Sometimes I look at my to-do list and wonder how it will all get done. When I look at the list, I get to decide what order to do things in. I get to decide how much I will do (or how little) and what to do first. I can group things together – some things, like laundry and doing dishes, can be done at the same time. I can ungroup things – maybe this item needs to go on next week’s list. I can reorder things and move something to the front if it’s more important and needs to be done right away.

    Life is about balance. Can we be comfortable with the things that don’t get done? What are the consequences for not doing something? Occasionally, we find if something didn’t get done, it’s possible it didn’t need doing in the first place. And of course, some things get us into trouble if we don’t do them (Did you pay your car bill this month? Did you remember to wish Dad a happy birthday?). Balance finds the things that have priority and gets them done without too much anxiety. Balance helps us look at the to-list without getting overwhelmed by the number of things on it. And sometimes, balance teaches us that a to-list isn’t necessary at all (though I will still keep my to-do list because it keeps me organized).

    By ungrouping things, we can also make room for people to help us. When I lived alone, I couldn’t ungroup the household chores. I lived alone, so the bathroom wasn’t going to get clean if I didn’t clean it. Now my spouse and I share the household chores. We have ungrouped them so they can be shared. When we share the load, it often makes the load easier to carry. Ungrouping reminds us how important it is to ask for help.

    And again, some things we can’t ungroup. Some things have to be mine to do. Writing my sermon each week for example, is my task. It’s not a task I can really share. Certain things are my responsibility, but it’s possible to find things to delegate when we are honest with how much time, energy, and imagination we actually have to get things done.

    Practice grouping things. See what can be combined. Ungroup things. Divide and conquer, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Move things to back or front: learn how to prioritize. Peace be with you!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not My Favorite Bible Story

I just finished a sermon series on the psalms. One of the passages was Psalm 69, which is a lament psalm that cries out to God for help (“Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.” -Psalm 69:1). It was a tough passage and I told the congregation from the sermon that it’s okay to admit you’re not okay. And sometimes these hard passages in the bible remind us that it’s okay to not be okay.             And then there are passages that just…don’t seem okay. Those passages that you read and think, “Thank God THAT story never comes up in the lectionary!” In an article from 2006, Barbara Brown Taylor calls these the “terror stories.” In her article, called “Preaching the Terrors: When Your Text Is Bad News,” Taylor wrote that the Bible is “a book about a sovereign God’s covenant with a chosen people, as full of holy terrors as it is of holy wonders, none of which we may avoid without avoiding part of the truth.”             That hit me in a raw way because I had just
Read more

The Great Social Media Detox of 2018

Image
My iPhone does this new thing where it sends me a message once a week to tell me how much time I spent on the screen in the past week. It even breaks it down for me: how much time do I spend reading, or on social media, or playing games. I’m glad that most of the time seems to be spent reading and not playing, but still. Last week I had a screen time total of 28 hours and 36 minutes. Holy. Cats. I saw a picture that said, “Sometimes you have to disconnect in order to connect.” It was the illustration for an article on why taking a break from screens can be a good thing. The article got into different ways to take a break from screens, including a social media detox. Since I do read a lot on my phone’s Kindle app and use the map app quite a bit, it’s unrealistic to go cold turkey no-screens ever. But a social media detox? Now that sounded like a good thing. I decided I would take a seven-day social media detox: no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram for seven days. Monday I put
Read more

Death and Taxes But Mostly Death

Disclaimer: I know, I know. Who needs disclaimers?  But  this is a topic on my heart today and when there's a topic on my heart after a week of trying to come up with a different topic for a blog post and not being able to, I have to go with what's on my heart. The following is the stuff I've been thinking about. I do not intend it to be morbid...I encourage you to read on thoughtfully and consider where you are in your own thoughts about death.             I am not a fan of those times when my husband tells me that he will most likely die before me. Actually, “not a fan” isn’t even strong enough language for how I feel when he says that to me. Not that he says this a lot: but occasionally, we get on the topic of death and inevitably, this remark will show its ugly face.             My husband and I are both in our thirties and relatively healthy. Neither of us plan on kicking the bucket anytime soon, but death is a reality (just like taxes, I’m told). To that end, we’
Read more