Secrets for Managing Your Time Wisely
Five questions for pastors to ask.
Many discussions of a pastor's tasks start with the advice to plan one's work. This sounds eminently plausible. The only thing wrong with it is that it rarely works. The plans remain on paper as good intentions. They seldom turn into achievements. The first step toward effective pastoral time-management is to record actual time-use. The specific method in which the record is put together need not concern us here. There are pastors who keep such a time log themselves, others have their secretaries do it for them. The important thing is that it gets done and that the record is made in real time; that is, at the time of the event itself, rather than later on from memory. A good many effective pastors keep such a log continuously and review it every month. At a minimum, effective pastors have the log run on themselves for three to four weeks at a stretch, twice a year or so on a regular schedule. After each such sample, they rethink and rework their schedule. About six months later, they invariably will find they have drifted into wasting their time on trivial matters. Time-use does improve with practice. But only constant efforts at managing time can prevent us from drifting. Systematic time management is therefore the next step. We have to find the nonproductive, time-wasting activities and get rid of them if we possibly can. This requires asking a number of diagnostic questions.
Many pastors know about these unproductive and unnecessary time demands, yet they hesitate to prune them, fearing they may cut out something important by mistake. But this mistake, if made, can be speedily corrected. If one prunes too harshly, one usually finds out soon enough. Every new President of the United States accepts too many invitations at first. Eventually it dawns on him that he has other work to do and that most of these invitations do not add to his effectiveness. He then tends to cut back too sharply and becomes inaccessible. A few weeks or months later, however the press and the radio tell him that he is losing touch. Then he usually finds the right balance between being exploited without effectiveness and using public appearances as his national pulpit. In fact, there is not much risk that we will cut back too much. We usually tend to overrate our importance and conclude that too many things can only be done by ourselves. Even the most effective pastors do unproductive things that should be weeded out. These questions above deal with unproductive and time-consuming activities over which every pastor has some control. Every pastor and church staff member should utilize them. Then they can move on to the task of consolidating time for the most important tasks. Peter F. Drucker; Leadership Handbooks of Practical Theology, Volume 3, Leadership and Administration; Time Management; pp 73-75. |
