Here is my monthly report on projects, goals, and the lessons I’m learning along the way.
My 2020 Goals
Professional Goals:
100% / Double the number of members of The Religion Teacher (December 2017 to present) (+8%)
410,890/1,000,000 words for kids (A part of my #1millionwordsforkids goal) (+18,172 words)
553/600 Resources (Videos/Worksheets) for Members of The Religion Teacher (+2 resources)
Personal Goals:
59/75 Books read (+9 books)
32/73 Books of the Bible read from beginning to end (+2 books read)
104/100 30-minute workouts (+9 workouts)
How I Spent My Time in October 2020
I track every minute of time I spend working on projects using an app called Toggl (here is why). Here is a list of the top ten projects I spent the most time on last month:
- 19:23 – The Religion Teacher Email & Customer Service
- 14:40 – Formation5 Daily Email Newsletter
- 10:57 – The Religion Teacher’s Bible Biography Worksheets
- 9:30 – Morning Preview
- 8:34 – October Speaking Events
- 8:28 – Daily Review
- 7:38 – The Religion Teacher September Membership Launch
- 5:56 – Weekly Review
- 3:55 – The Religion Teacher Blog
- 3:31 – Prepare the Way: Advent and Christmas Bible Stories for Kids
Total Time: 113:13 Hours
October 2020 Highlights & Lessons Learned
Formation5: A New Daily Email List for Parents
On November 1st I launched a new, daily email list for Catholic parents. The idea is to help families integrate more faith formation into their daily life with short lessons that take only five minutes or less. I spent October writing the emails ahead of time. My wife’s feedback was incredible and so were the test runs on my kids.
I’m excited about offering this new venture during the last two months of the year. If the response is good enough, I can see this being a big part of the work I do to help young people encounter Christ.
Learn more about Formation5 here.
The Religion Teacher’s Bible Biography Worksheets
Last year I started creating biography worksheets about the major figures in the Old Testament. In October I picked up the project again and pushed through the prophets creating a dozen new worksheets. To be honest, I learned a lot by creating these resources. I knew a lot about the prophets already, of course, but digging in deeper to create these resources really helped me to realize the role they played in Salvation History. These worksheets were published in November.
Twitter Threads
Every social network has its strengths. I’ve read and enjoyed a lot of Twitter threads this year especially the ones by brothers Joe and Anthony Pompliano. I tried creating a couple of threads as well. It was time-consuming, but fun to research and write. Both threads were created for the Feast of St. Jude.
Why St. Jude is the Patron Saint of Lost Causes
The Surprising History of St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital
