Time Parasites – Free up 30% of Your Time with one Exercise

Young pastors are always asking me the question: “How do you find the time to do everything? You write sermons & blogs; video scripts & tweets; and then, somehow amidst all of this, you find the time to lead an organization?! How do you do it?”

Truth be told: there are many days when I feel like a total and complete failure! For years, I never wanted to teach on time management because, I felt like I was so terrible at it!

Yet, life experience matters too. It takes “10,000 hours” to become an expert in anything. And as a person who’s three decades into weekly preaching, I literally have thousands of sermons to borrow from. So, if you’re still on your first 500 sermons, (or whatever it is that you do), it’s simply not fair to compare yourself with a person who’s already an expert.

But “scaling requires subtracting.” If we seriously want to grow your organization or capacity, it’s critical we learn to work ON our ministries and organizations, not IN our ministries.

But how do we shift? Through 5 simple steps.

(1). Write down your Day to Day / Week to week / Yearly job tasks/responsibilities? (Bullet point them).

For example, make a list of every single event or task that will eat up your time in the next three months. When I fully take in that list, I can almost immediately identify a few silly things I need to prune. And you can do this with ALL of your weekly tasks or yearly events.

But why must I write them down? Because, a problem or schedule that’s “well-defined” is a problem or schedule that’s half-solved. Usually 10% of your busyness is silly stuff that could be immediately eliminated; yet, another 10% could be solved with a new habit, tactic, or system.

(2). Create a Delegation List:  Once you eliminate the silly stuff, begin to ask the question: Do you have anyone around you who’s capable of doing 80% of the quality that you could do? Think about your friends and volunteers you interact with on a regular basis. Many of them might be thrilled to help you. Your drudgery zone is often their delightful zone. When the Holy Spirit brings them to mind, begin writing their names after specific responsibilities. Chances are, there is another 10% of your activities that could be immediately delegated! (And by the way, make sure you include your upline/boss before you officially start delegating – just to make sure you’re doing it thoughtfully).

(3). Create an Invite/ Recruitment Plan: Every one of us has people sitting on the fringes of our lives who are totally inactive or unfulfilled when it comes to ministry ownership. Do you know of any volunteers who could be invited into higher levels of leadership and servanthood (Eg., under-utilized spouses, friends)? Most people will not step into higher levels of commitment and maturity unless they’re asked. Brainstorm a list of people who could use such an invitation. What are you going to do this month to personally invite them? Chances are, within 3 months, you could probably delegate another 10 to 20% of your activities.

(4). Practice the 1-3-1 Principle: This simple little trick can help take a lot of things off your plate. Whenever there’s a complex problem to solve, many people procrastinate it, which only makes the problem heavier, because we’re adding guilt and denial into the mix. So, to avoid this, simply

1. Define the ONE biggest thing creating your problem: A problem well-defined is a problem 1/2 solved.
2. Come up with THREE viable solutions to the problem.
3. Pick the ONE solution that feels best to you and the Holy Spirit.

For example, back when I was preaching too much, I was losing my voice every week. I knew I couldn’t keep up the pace. And my ONE big problem was, an unsustainable preaching calendar. So, I came up with three solutions: (A). Start developing in-house preachers. (I’d have them write three full sermons and give them to me. I’d pick one and develop it with them until it was ready; (B). Start tapping into other churches’ video feeds once a month. (C). Bring in more guest speakers. At that time, we didn’t have much money to give as honorariums to these outside speakers. And, at that time, my in-house team of preachers needed  more hours of help per message than it’d take for me to write a message. So, the one solution was, “Get my pastor friends to give me their most popular sermon from the past six months.” And my church LOVED it! If the spiritual food is good, they won’t care if it’s video.

But here’s one last question to ponder that will help you rethink your schedule:

(5). What is one thing, that if you did/stopped doing on a regular basis, would make the biggest difference on your ministry?This one singular question can change everything for you if you meditate on it on a regular basis. And in some ways, you could apply this question to anything: your marriage, your parenting, even your spiritual growth.

As one example: almost every ministry or department has what I like to call a “skill cliff” – it’s a certain set of skills that are required to maintain the quality and integrity of that department. Of course, the problem with skill cliffs are that they become bottlenecks for volunteers. Very few volunteers have the time or ability to acquire the skills necessary to serve at the next level. And those of us with those special talents often times work twice as often simply because, “no one else can do it!”

But, if you ever plan to Sabbath (or delegate, for that matter), you are going to need to learn how to build ladders (& eventually escalators) for these skill cliffs in your department (i.e., figure out how to train volunteers or simplify processes).

Generally speaking, we already know the answer to this (after all, we are in our position because we figured out how to scale that cliff!) So, this final question simply focuses our attention on the answer we already know. But what is that for you?

Of course, it should go without saying: pray your guts out that God would help you “redeem your time.” And last but not least, if you have a boss or upline, make sure that you include them in on this process – lest your quest for efficiency gets interpreted as rebellion or laziness! : )

But, here’s the big picture: As I look back on my life, many of my successes came after I gave myself to these 5 steps. Why? Because I learned how to work ON my ministry, as opposed to getting stuck working IN my ministry.

In fact, now, I process these questions almost every 6 months. As our responsibilities expand, we need to constantly reassess where we spend our time. And especially for those of us who are pastors: There are souls at stake!

So “Heavenly father, help us to live our lives in a way that makes sense in light of eternity. In Jesus name, amen.”