If I have my timing right, the last conference I spoke at was the 2020 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors. It was early February and we were just beginning to hear unfamiliar words like “COVID” and “coronavirus.” (A search through my inbox shows that the first mention of it was from an old Adam Ford newsletter in which he speculated that the outbreak in China was far worse than anyone was letting on.) I didn’t think much about the virus as I traveled to Minneapolis and at that time never would have imagined the way it would slam borders shut, disrupt travel, and close down the conference industry. I never would have imagined I wouldn’t attend another event for more than two years. My topic at that conference was “Pastors and Productivity” and I enjoyed leading a seminar that took pastors through the opening steps of constructing a system meant to help them become more productive. It was based, of course, on the system I outline in Do More Better. I led the seminar, spent some time in meetings and fellowship, and then flew home. Just a few weeks later Ontario was locked down, the borders were closed, the airliners were in long-term storage in Arizona, and my entire calendar was blank. A couple of weeks ago my church hosted a Weekender event for pastors and I was asked to dust off that very same seminar and to present it again. So I printed the same worksheet, opened the same slideshow, and presented pretty well the … Continue reading The Joy of Forgetting What You Need To Remember