On December 9 2005, I was at a Christmas Open House at my pastor's home. Around 9pm, I got into a conversation with a young brother who asked work and family. I answered him honestly, "I'm fed up with myself. God has given me so many great things to do, but every time someone asks how I am, all I ever do complain about being too busy or stressed. I need a change of heart and attitude, and some way practical way of keeping better track of everything."
Not long after that (I don't remember how long), my cell phone rang. The caller ID showed the home phone number of Bill, a colleague of mine. It was strange for him to call me on the weekend, so, concerned it might be a clinical emergency, I answered:
"Hi Bill."
"Tony! How are you?"
"Good. I'm at a Christmas party. What up? Everything OK?"
"I just looked online and didn't see your part of our presentation proposal for APA [2006 American Psychological Association Annual Convention]. Did you submit it?"
"What? Oh no...no....NO!...Oh my goodness"
"The deadline is tonight at midnight."
"Oh no...no...no! I can't believe I did this. I am so sorry, Bill. I'll go home and submit it right now."
I quickly excused myself from the lovely party and went home to put a proposal together with the clock ticking. I had a terrible pit in my stomach. If I couldn't do it, I would disappoint both Bill and the other colleague (from another institution) with whom I had agreed to present--for one of them it was a presentation about his central area of study.
I prayed, pounded something out, and hit "Submit" on the APA website at 11:59pm. I took a screenshot to record the moment, then spent the next 2 hours searching the web for "time management," "organization," "task software," and every other name I could think of...until I figured out that the category I was looking for was "personal productivity."
(...to be continued in Part 2)
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