I’m 28. Two years away from the big 30. It’s always been weird for me this whole age thing. Hollywood always portrays growing up as this thing you see and feel. I’ve never felt old, out of shape yes, but not old. I think I’m a little wiser because of the years I’ve spent on earth, not because of them but because of the experiences I’ve had during them.

Today was good. Spent the day off at home with my daughter. Read some, talked to some family and friends. Enjoyed a great cup of coffee thanks to my new burr grinder, I got from my Grandma. We ate dinner at a great pizza joint in town, Italy’s, and topped it off with home made cannoli. All in all, 27 was a good year. God finally landed us where He wants us and we’ve meet some great people, done some cool stuff and finally feel a little settled. So we’ll have to see what He has in store for 28.

A few years back I got on the GTD bandwagon from talks with my friend Chris and sites like 43 Folders and Kinkless (a GTD Mac Application of sorts). Getting GTD implemented in you life is a tough thing, you have years of built up bad habits to break and new habits to create. But when I’m doing it I fill more productive and free from worrying about things slipping through and not getting done. The problem is that it’s pretty easy to fall off the band wagon, which I had done, but I’m working my way back to Getting Things Done.

This week I went back to set up my Kinkless document and decided to go look and see how far along OmniFoucs (a full fledge Mac Application based on Kinkless) was and it’s in Alpha release to those who had signed up for information about OmniFocus. So after some searching in my gmail account I found the invitation I signed up for months ago and downloaded yesterday’s nightly build. So far I’m really liking it. It takes a little getting use to from how Kinkless works and the different views it offers but I can still get those views its just taken a few minutes of playing around to find them.

Some of the best features are iCal syncing, a quick entry mode and a web interface to add and view next actions. The web interface is great if you have an always on Mac in an office of at home and a cell phone with a data plan. I think they are trying to finish up the alpha (which for me has been extremely stable) so they can go into beta testing with a wider audience soon. I know that you can still sign up for the OmniFocus newsletter and when availible they still send out invitations for new alpha testers, you can also stay up to date with what is happening with they project on the Omni Group blog.

Do you do GTD? If so, how?

[tags]GTD, David Allen, Kinkless, OmniFocus[/tags]

Ever picked up a flyer, magazine, advertisement anything that just didn’t look good? What was your first impression? What thoughts run through your mind as you process what you see? This is what first time visitors think of when they visit our services. First impressions are made with in the first 5 to 15 minutes they are on the property; that includes parking the car, walking up the side walk entering the foyer and being greeted and given a bulletin.

We’ve been working on some of our first impressions that we can handle in house during the week. We’re finishing up a logo, redesigning the bulletin and how things appear in it. Eventually we are looking at having one or two color shells printed up to spice it up a little bit. Having discussions on graphics and clip art, font, font size and color, uniformness. These are leading up to a style guide for the whole church so that things look uniform and pleasing to the eye.

Somethings we have to work on is… -parking lot (appearance, parking lot attenders) -greeters (knowing what to do when new people come in and specific training on get their name, helping them to the Children’s Ministry area if need be, asking if they can be of any help and showing them to the auditorium) -website (this one is mine, I’m waiting on the logo and color scheme then I’ll start to flesh it out) -worship lyrics and announcements on the screens

What are some ways your small church is working on First Impressions?