Transcription
What are you gonna do this week? What are you gonna do today?
I don't know. I'm probably gonna go into the office. We're gonna talk about time management today. Newt Larsen, Pastorpedia with Jeff Pogue and Jim Brown. This is a tough one that some people love, depending on how they're built; maybe some people hate. I just want to say, as we start, I love doing this with you two guys. You both love Christ, you both love the church and people, but I know you love, or at least do, time management—let's talk about it.
What are some essential elements of a work week? We're talking now about pastoring and family time and everything. I would [categorize it into] big categories: God, family, church, and everything falls under that. And so those are the three bigs for me: God, family, church—trying to keep those things in that order, mixed together. Because, if, as a pastor, one thing for me: if I fail as a husband, if I fail as a father, then in my mind, I'm failing as a pastor. And if I fail as a follower of God—when I mean fail is I'm not pouring into that element and I'm not being recharged—I can never be this the father or the pastor.
Which one includes your personal life, family? I mean all of them; they all overlap somehow. But my personal life: when I think about personal life, how am I managing my time at home? How am I managing my time outside of the office? Personal life—okay, exercise, spiritual development. Yeah, I put down personal health and relationships. And I think my own personal life: I have to be healthy spiritually, physically, emotionally. Then I need to have some a system in place where—and I do; I have a system in place. I I don't back off from it. I have a regular exercise plan. I want to be physically fit so I can get my best to my family and get my best to my God and get my best in my church.
Jeff, you got a lot done. What's it—what are the essential elements of a week for you?
Well, I scheduled all these things actually. I know it's scheduling as Newt's love language, so I scheduled all these things out. But the same things: my time with Christ, which is often overlap my time with the office; might the the time for me to best insulate myself with the Lord is with my office door closed. My family, for sure; making sure that I'm I'm home in the evenings as much as I can, doing and being with my my kids. I'm going to look at exercise. Exercise is very much a discipline for me; it's I don't enjoy it like I'm not looking to go play basketball.
Should enjoy it?
Yeah, I I don't I don't do it in heaven, Jeff, so you know…
Yeah, I know, but I don't I don't like to go wrestle like a barony that's liver and stuff that Jim likes to do. So I look at that, and then I a big part of my week is preaching, and and that has to have its its element and takes a chunk of my time. And then management of the church. So I'm gonna set it up that way, and I'm going to make sure that as I'm segmenting my calendar for the week that those are the priorities that are gonna hit. Now an element that I think of that you guys, you two hyperactive ones, don't as much: I need to rest. And I need—then you have a two-hour nap built in there?
I have a two-hour Nenana massage. It's great. But I need to watch a football game, or I need to watch a movie; like that's that's a big deal to me, to click my brain off.
I would say, for me, to I have that, but I'd do it differently. I pull away; I go out and sit in the woods or get out in creation; I refresh, getting alone. Like I I do that also. I would also say I work very hard at making sure I get a certain amount of hours of sleep. I'm pretty I'm strong about that in my opinion on that, and any of my actions. I work hard at getting good sleep because I know if I have a good night's rest, then I'll be able to operate well. So I really guard that area of my life, too. But I pull away; I refresh; get in the get out in the wilderness; go when I go for a run, you know, for you it's work, for me it's refreshment. That's where I hang with God.
I want to say this: just the essentials—personal growth, the message, leading staff, vision, prayer, evangelism and counseling, the discipleship are things that are the bigs for me in my schedule. And if we don't schedule the sermon time or whatever your your pace and whatever your best emotional and spiritual time each day, schedule that. I just meet too many guys who write their sermons Saturday or even do study and cram time. We hope they can—you obviously tragedies are gonna interrupt, and family, too. But we've got to schedule our week.
The word is master schedule. Yeah, you attack your week; don't let your a week attack you.
Let me ask: do you have to schedule them? Do you have to know what you're gonna do every day?
We can—I can be too tight about this, but what are some ideas about scheduling your life or knowing when you're gonna have family, all this you refer…
I definitely think you have to know what you're gonna do every day. In ideally, you have an assistant that helps you with that and lays out helps you to keep a schedule. If not, you just have to discipline yourself to do it. But if you do not, you will be swept over by the tyranny of the urgent. If you don't schedule leadership development, if you don't schedule exercise, if you don't schedule sermon prep—and I do think sermon prep, I think people overemphasize it and underemphasize it. I think people spend way too much time prepping for a sermon, or not nearly enough. But if you break it out through your week so that you can come back with fresh thoughts, in your marinating in your sermon instead of trying to crank it into your brain, it'll preach more naturally. The management of the church, you know, I'll block out administrative times where I'm gonna take an hour and a half and I'm gonna do my paperwork in that kinds of. But it if you don't lay it out, the urgent or the distraction will just sweep over you and you don't accomplish what you need to.
A file?
Yeah, I would agree, Mike. If you look at my week, it's very similar. I know what I'm—Monday's is my day off. Tuesday's staff meetings in the morning. Tuesday afternoons I'm thinking through the administration from the weekend. Wednesday I block out time for counseling; that that's what if you want to meet, that's the time of me. Thursday I'm developing the mess. Friday I actually shut my doors; I don't take any meetings, anything on Fridays, obviously, unless it's a real emergency. But that's my sermon writing time. I I because I got we got to we have to hit try to give our vest every Sunday. We're writing a term paper I would say every weekend, and people are coming to be taught; that's a big moment. So I want to give my absolute best. I don't want to wing it; walk-up extemporaneous. They'll go in the pulpit and say, "On my way here today, God gave me this message." I threw that I went away…
Yeah, I've heard people say that, and I cringe. I just one time in Ashland, Ohio, pastoring there, my wife at breakfast—we went out to breakfast every Thursday—said with this great compliment, "I think you're doing a great job with the church, but I don't think I know you." I thought that is really cool 'cause she likes the church. Okay, family time. How do you guard that? Just for a word on that before we talk about the interruptions.
I am I violently protect my day off. It has to be a real real emergency or a very deliberate decision for me not to take my day off. And if my normal day is interrupted, I make up for it. So my my kids are waiting for me, and I also, you know, I've chose to do with the house and all those kind of things. It's a big deal. I work very hard to have evenings; my kids are in school and those kind of things. So that 5 to 6 p.m. basketball game in my driveway is a big deal, you know, with my my kids, then and then helping out around the house. Even if we're even if we're just laying around, we choose to lay around and watch a Cavs game; we're together, and we're having fun, and we're all doing it on at whatever LeBron did. But that my vacation, we use them, all those kind of things. And so you have to get—my my wife looked at me one day and she said, "You're doing a great job at the church, and you're an amazing husband, and this is the way you can help me," she said, "Give me a predictable schedule." She looked—she actually said, she goes, "I actually don't I'm not bothered by how much you work; I'm bothered that I don't know when I can count on you." And so we work hard for that predictable schedule.
Yeah, and you could have said to her, "God's using me…"
Well, I think let me know that those two let me know how that works. And what about interruptions? I i've have felt guilty reading some books about—enter the god sends all interruptions—and a lot of you work in churches with no one else on staff, and somebody walks in the church to work; that's a hard call for many many pastors.
Yeah, my my wife and my children are never interruptions; that's a big one for me. And and they know the boundaries. My kids are amazing at knowing when I'm in an important conversation, when I'm not. And Heidi and I have a little sink signal system: when she calls and I'll if I'm in a meeting—out—Nora if she calls me right back, she needs me. So I'll take the eyeliner up to me and do it. And then when there's an emergency, there's an emergency; that is a God thing. But defining what an emergency is, that's an us thing. I would say, don't let someone else's franticness become your foolishness. People often—this this thing has been building for thirty weeks in their life, six months, and finally get to the end, they're Frank, and they want change now. Don't let their franticness become your foolishness. I wish I heard that a long time ago as a young pastor with a messianic complex. You know, "We got to see you today, right? We got to be care…" It's not gonna be fixed overnight. That's some of some of the things that has been messed up for six months. Schedule time to meet with them.
Some of us are built this way. I had a master schedule when I was 18 in college.
Yes. Wow. l7 time ago.
Yes. Four before the First World War.
Yeah. Well, I fought in the First World War there. Yeah. Some of them some of us are more—what would you say—we got it—you're saying we got to do some of it and plan our day and plan our sermons and plan our leadership; all these other things have got to be built into our lives, starting with you. You built—you need to build a master schedule around your personality. And so my my personality is probably similar to yours: like I have it down to the minute, and I'm feel like I'm behind if I'm not walking out the door the minute I thought I was gonna walk out the door. My my wife, Heidi, is Brazilian; it's unbelievable what she gets accomplished, but she does it a completely different way than I would do it. But she would wake up in the morning with her her goals, her outcomes on her mind to be working for that. So I think I think that the point is have a plan. If you don't have a plan, you won't accomplish anything. Your plan can be your plan, though, right? It doesn't have to be our plan. You can get ideas from that, but wake up in the morning with that to-do list the night before; make sure that you've figured out what you're going to accomplish the next day and have some kind of a plan. They don't wing it. Gain control of your schedule, or it'll be in control of you. That basically it's a pure simple back, but it is very true. And and if you can't do it—for me personally, when it comes to scheduling, I'm that scenario—discipline comes naturally for me, so I don't necessarily need to lean on someone as much. But if you if you're not able to do and get yourself an assistant or someone that can help you out—there's a verse in 1st Corinthians 9 where Paul says I uh fit my body…
Yeah. A new translation would be "buffet my body."
I like that new translation. I want to apply this to time management. Sometimes we gotta say, "I gotta do this." And somebody taught me once: do the hard thing first. Even if you're got at the hospital and you're gonna visit two people, go to the one that's a bear first. Just make your body all your mind always been doing hard thing. I would say one last thing for me is I had to resolve—come to this resolution: I can't get everything done today. There will always be—I'm I'm the guy that I need to check it off; I need to get it done; I feel better when it's completed. And I finally had to realize that there always be will be more work. It's okay that there's more work, but make sure that you've scheduled what work needs to do.
I never bragged that you skipped your vacation days. No, keep them, your day off, your your hours. Hey, thank you for listening or being a part of this. The printed material will be more on time management. Pastorpedia is meant to just say, "We love you; we want to help; maybe some suggestions will help because they've helped us." I'm with Jeff and Jim; I'm Newt. God's blessings to you. Thank you.