Want more time?  Who doesn’t?

I’m going to share one practice that has made the biggest difference for me in managing time. When I made this change, it was almost like someone handed me an extra day or two each week.

I had struggled for years to balance my time.  While I experienced some advances over the years, the biggest shift for me happened a few years ago when I moved to a fixed schedule. While this isn’t a particularly new discipline or astonishing insight, it took me a long time to get there. Most colleagues I know still struggle with balancing time.  The most effective leaders I know have mastered this.

Because what I do is so open ended (it’s ministry…you could have meetings all day, write all day, pray all day, work strategy all day or I suppose figure out other ways to spend your time) rather than seeing all my time as open, I created a master schedule for my work and life, and committed myself to it.  I decided to spend my time the same way every week; I committed to a fixed schedule.

For me, I landed on spending 40% of my time meeting with people and 60% of my time out of meetings.

Deciding to spend 60% of my time alone, writing, creating messages, working on strategy, leading and creating was very liberating;  like you, I have enough meeting requests and opportunities to spend 100% of my time in meetings and never attend to some of the most important work I do: lead, reflect, pray, write, plan, create and develop.  And the urgent requests to meet always seemed to be more pressing than the important things I needed to get to but didn’t have time for.

So I simply decided ahead of time to spend over half my time doing the things a leader should be doing but no one ever asks me to do (people only ever ask you for meetings or attention to their needs).  No one ever asks you to book time to write a message, think, advance the mission or create something new.  So I just decided to book it for myself.

While everyone will be different, here’s how I organize my time:

Monday: Writing day – no meetings (message prep, blogging, meeting preparation, brainstorming, time for reflection, leadership projects)

Tuesday: Meeting day (various staff teams meetings, all day)

Wednesday:  Writing day – no meetings (message prep, blogging, meeting preparation, brainstorming, time for reflection, leadership projects, sometimes a coaching call with another leader or mentor)

Thursday: Meeting day (direct report one on one meetings most of the day)

Friday: Float day (often I work on messages and if I travel, I often make it a Friday-Saturday)

Saturday: Off

Sunday: Teach and lead

The game changer for me in this is that when people used to request meetings, I would usually feel obligated to book them into any and all free space in my calendar. Now I don’t.  Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays are legitimately ‘busy’ days…spent working on the things no one ever asks you to work on.  If people want to meet in person, my assistant keeps two breakfast slots (Tuesday and Thursday) and one free slot a week open.  I usually spend that time with our staff, elders or someone who is new to faith or going through a significant life transition.  Everyone else gets referred to someone who can better help them with what they are going through.

One final tip: when people ask you for an immediate appointment, you or your assistant can legitimately say you have no available time that week.  That’s not mean, that’s just true; you’re working on what will best advance the mission you’ve all committed yourselves to.   And with some wide open slots in your calendar, you haven’t completely cordoned yourself off from the people you love and serve.   This is not an excuse for isolation, laziness or inaccessibility.  It’s just the best way I know how to ensure you spend your time advancing the mission.

Every week I still get more requests than I can handle, but people are patient.  Sometimes other people in the organization are better suited to meet with them anyway.  At other times, the issues that were so pressing the day they asked resolve themselves by the time a spot in the calendar is open.  Plus it frees me up to work on what is best going to advance our mission, which should benefit everyone, including them.

The details are far less important than the principle: decide ahead of time how you can best spend your time, create a fixed schedule, and stick to it.  No guilt.

What are you learning about time management?  What’s your best insight?  What do you still struggle with?

Here are some random changes you can make to help make 2012 a better year:

1.  Believe the best about people. Make trust your default, not suspicion.

2.  Be on time. Great leaders are rarely late.

3.  Under promise and over deliver. Our tendency is to do the opposite.

4.  Stop blaming people. Just stop.  Your will start taking responsibility for yourself as a result.

5. Pray for your enemies. You will forgive them…and they will not be your enemies for long.

6.  Review the week ahead on Sunday night for ten minutes. Monday won’t seem nearly as intimidating

7.  Get up earlier. The early bird actually usually does get the worm.

8. Go to bed earlier. Stop falling asleep on the couch.

9.  Read the bible. Read at least 3 verses of scripture every morning, more if you’re up to it.

10. Never say “I don’t have the time.” Instead, say “I’m not going to make the time.”   It will change how you see time…and priorities.

11.  Smile. Most people look moderately unhappy most of the time.

12.  Clean your personal space. A clean desk, car or office makes you feel better about yourself.

13.  Give 10%.  Give away the first tenth of everything you make.  You’ll be surprised at how liberating this is.

14.  Pay cash (as in bills in your wallet) for discretionary items. You will spend less and save more.

15.  Exercise.  Enough said.  Just get moving.

16.  Do something for yourself everyday. People who care for themselves are better at caring for others.

17.  Read outside your area of interest. Apps like Zite and Flipboard even make this so easy.

18.  Automate what’s important. Schedule appointments with yourself for what matters.  Automatically take savings and givings out of your bank accounts.

19. Serve somewhere. People who serve others live longer and are happier.

20.  Show up prepared. Whether it’s a meeting or simply coming home, prepare yourself before you show up.

21.  Play. Most of us have forgotten how to play.  Rediscover it.

What would you add to this list?  What’s helped you the most?

I love New Year’s because I love progress.

Over the weekend I wrote a full page list of goals I want to accomplish in 2012, personally and in ministry.  What scared me is that a few of my goals look eerily like some of my goals from early 2011.

Some of that is understandable: big goals don’t always get accomplished in 12 months.  But some was honestly just a lack of follow through.  But what I don’t want to do (and what I don’t think you want to do) is to make resolutionsonly  to break them or ignore them.

So what’s the secret to keeping the resolutions you make?

Writing them down? Nope.  I’ve not kept resolutions I’ve written down.

Commitment? No, I’m pretty committed to what I write down.

Developing a plan? I’ve had plans that I’ve not followed before either.

Discipline? I can be pretty disciplined in some areas but not in others.

So what is it?  Why do I keep some resolutions but not others?  I spend some time reflecting on that and realized that when I add two key ingredients into my new year’s resolution process, my accomplishment rate jumps significantly:

Specific Accountability. When I personally track with someone on my goals, I am far more likely to meet them.  Whether you join a club, hire a trainer, meet with a consultant or share the goals you have with mentors or a personal board of directors, creating specific accountability will help you fulfil far more of your goals.

Measuring the Cost of Non-Fulfilment. When I count the cost of not fulfilling a goal, I am more likely to fulfill it.  The tough part is that a lot of the consequences to not fulfilling your goals are far down the road.  Not losing 20 pounds probably won’t kill you this year, but it might in 20 years.  Financial irresponsibility may not bankrupt you in 2012, but it could expose you to real hardship three years from now.  Neglecting your relationship with God, your marriage or your parenting might not create any immediate crisis a year from now, but give it five years and you could end up divorced, estranged from your kids and feeling like God has lost all interest in you.

In addition to writing down my goals this year, I’m focusing in on specific accountability on each one of them with a couple of key people in my life.  In fact, last week I had a friend tell me to give him my list of goals and he was going to personally commit to helping me accomplish them this year.  What an incredible gift!  Even writing them knowing we were going to have a year long dialogue on every one of them made me realize that I’d better be serious about each of them.

I’m also going to pay more attention to what’s at stake if I miss any of them this year.  Again, the short term cost might be small, but the long term cost could be much higher.

How about you?  What do you find helpful in reaching your goals?

…is standing in the way of what you should do.

As your life gets more complicated and the world gets smaller, there are so many things you could do with your time, resources and energy.

That wasn’t always true.  In a pre-wired world, our personal universe was smaller and many of us longed for opportunities.  You only got news when you bought a newspaper or turned on a tv (and even then, what you saw had been pre-narrowed for you).  You only really learned when you had a book or took a course or got out into another forum.  It was far more difficult to start something, whether that was a writing project (who would publish you?) or a not-for-profit or a business.  But now you can start almost anything anytime you want.  It’s just easy.

There is so much you could do.

But there are only a few things you should do.

What you could do will always compete with what you should do, until you figure out what you should be doing.  And that will help refocus and eliminate all the coulds until you focus 90% of your time on the handful of shoulds that will become your life. (You can leave the 10% for fun and experimentation with what could be.)

I’ve had to spend a lot of time over the last few years figuring out what the best use of my time is because the possibilities keep multiplying.  What I could do seems to keep growing for me as it does for you too.  It’s just the nature of world we live in.  But the more you realize that could doesn’t mean should,  the more you will discover what your true mission in life is.  In fact, you may finally find your sweet spot.

What you could do is always standing in the way of what you should do.

What should you being doing today?  Eliminate a few more things you could be doing and you might find out.

I’ve got more than a few friends right now who are going through a very difficult season.  Cancer, marriages in crisis and career issues are just a few of the problems in the lives of people I care about.

One question keeps surfacing:

Does God give you more than you can handle?

Strangely, I think the answer is simple:  Yes he does.

As I’ve reflected on my own challenges and those of my friends, I’m reminded of the searing pain of some seasons of life.  Whether it’s leadership challenges, illness, circumstances, or even personal implosions, sometimes it really does seem like more than you can handle.

Which sounds like a recipe to abandon faith.  But actually, it’s the opposite.  Those moments are the ones in which our faith needs to deepen even more.  Here’s why:

God gives us more than we can handle, but he never gives us more than He can handle.

The very moment in which we are most likely to lose faith is the moment in which we need to deepen it.  Because God can handle whatever you are facing, even if you can’t.

A couple of passages have sprung to life for me in this season with my friends.  Here’s one of them.  I love what Paul says:

We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

In fact, we expected to die. But we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.  Tell me if you’ve seen a more powerful thought recently.  I haven’t. That’ll preach.

Even in leadership, sometimes I get so overwhelmed by the task and things not going the way I had hoped (despite best efforts) that I just have to re-surrender everything to God.

Is it too much for you and me to handle?  Sometimes, absolutely.

Which is why I’m so grateful for a God who can be trusted in every circumstance, no matter what it looks or feels like to us.

What are you learning in this area?  What’s helped you?

A few days ago I was in Germany talking to church leaders about keeping your heart fully engaged as a leader over the long haul.

A the end of the talk, I invited people who were running on empty to stand, offering to pray for people who were standing and in need of a touch from God. At first, no one stood, which, if you’re a communicator, always creates a fun moment.

As I said a few more words, a handful of people stood up. But by the time we were ready to pray, half the room was standing. A thousand leaders on their feet. All of them saying it’s been dry, they’re tired and they long for a touch from God.

I won’t forget that picture for a long time. Because I realized what’s at stake. Could you imagine if half the leaders (volunteer or staff) decided within the next year that they just couldn’t do it anymore?

Could you imagine if the leaders who stayed lost their passion and led from a place of fatigue and emptiness rather than strength and passion? Because I know what happens when you get tired; your heart stops being fully engaged.

This is personal for me because I know what it’s like to be tired in ministry, to be fatigued to the level where you’ve lost the energy that fuels your spirit. The good news is it comes back over time if you continue to see God. You can emerge out of a dry season with more energy and passion than you have ever had.

It’s possible. But it’s not automatic. I doesn’t just happen. And after seeing a thousand great, dedicated church leaders on their feet asking for help, I realized again what a silent but critical issue this is in the church.

So first, be honest with yourself. How are you doing, really? If you’re not honest with yourself, you won’t be honest with God, let alone others. How are you?

If you’re in a season where you’re just barely hanging on, dont just hang on. Deal with it. Here are three things you can do to help (at least they’ve helped me):

Tell someone. You can’t go through this alone. Start with a friend -someone who knows you and cares about you and who can tell you what you don’t always want to hear. And if you need to see a counsellor, don’t hesitate. Community is a gift from God. I was so proud of the leaders who stood up as a first step toward acknowledging how they were feeling and that they needed a touch from God. That was so powerful! They told someone.

Take responsibility. Regardless of how you and I got to where we’re at, we’re responsible for our own spiritual growth and our own care. No one can make me better. At a minimum I need to cooperate with what needs to happen. Better still if I resolve to get the help I need.

Put yourself first when it comes to spiritual growth. Sometimes ministry is a place where you receive, but often it’s a place where you give. Replenish your walk. Take time every day to nourish your relationship with God. Read bible passages you will ever preach on. Pray about things that have nothing to do with your work. Find some friendships that restore and rebuild you and spend time with those friends. Get out on your bike and go for a ride. Do something that refuels you.

So, how are you doing? Really?

I think God has a vision of thousands of leaders serving with passion for years into the future. And you know what I believe? He wants you in that picture. He wants your heart fully engaged.

What helps you keep your heart fully engaged?

I think one of a leader’s key role is chief encourager.  As we’ve talked about before, most people love to be encouraged.  I’ve actually never met anyone who is overencouraged.

One of my roles as a leader is to encourage people.  I am amazed at how often a kind word or deed goes further than I thought it would.  I’m amazed at how often someone’s note, email or words can lift my spirits, so I try to reciprocate.

One of the most important things you can do as a leader is to keep encouraging people.  Believe in them.  Believe they can accomplish the mission.  I promise you at any given moment, people are doubting themselves and doubting the future.  We leaders are dealers in hope.

But I have a problem that always works against encouragement.  It’s called reality.  Maybe it’s my personality, or maybe it’s because I’m a leader, but I tend to see all the flaws in the system.  I see all the issues in front of us.  I can sometimes see the flaws in people.  And if I don’t manage it well, my temptation will be to point out what’s wrong in such a way that the encouragement can evaporate.

It’s difficult to manage the tension between instilling hope in people and pointing out what part of the status quo needs to change.

While the tension never fully goes away, three things help me wrestle it down:

• Encourage the person and point out what’s wrong with the issue. The more I separate the person from the problem the more we can become allies in attacking the problem we’re all facing within the organization/system/status quo.
• Remember your words weigh more. A leader I admire once told me that he realized that a small criticism of an event might feel like a casual comment to him, but because he’s the leader it might feel like a 50 pound weight to the person he heard it.
• Motivate people the way they want to be motivated. Strangely, problems and flaws motivate me.  I love to fix what’s broken and make it better.  But just because pointing out problems motivates me doesn’t motivate others.

How about you?  Do you struggle with this tension?  What helps you encourage others well?  What helps you point out weaknesses in a helpful way?

More so than any other point in my life, I enjoy being alone.  But there’s a world of difference between solitude and isolation.

It can be easy to miss the difference, but the difference night and day.

Solitude is good.  It recharges the soul.  It offers time for reflection, for prayer.  And even when you’re alone, if you’re experiencing solitude, you are still connected.  Solitude connects you to God, to yourself, and prepare you to be connected to others.

Isolation, on the other hand, is never replenishing.  It can feel like solitude in the sense that you are alone, but isolation doesn’t connect you to anyone.  Isolation does what the word suggests – it cuts you off, from God, from others, and sometimes even from yourself.

Solitude is a gift from God, but isolation is a tool of the enemy – a punishment.  If you think about the way we humans punish offenders, one of the worst forms of incarceration we have is solitary confinement.  It’s pure isolation.

We all need breaks.  We all need time away.  But when you get away, seek solitude.  God uses it in powerful ways.  But never mistake it for isolation.  One gives life.  The other steals it.

The question to ask, of course, is in your alone time, are you in solitude or in isolation?

Perhaps the most challenging and haunting question you can ask yourself as a ministry leader is this:

“If my role at church was to end tomorrow, what would be left of my faith?”

It’s a question I ask myself constantly because working in ministry can often leave people confused about what we do at work and who we are in life.  After all, people in ministry are there in the first place because of our faith.

But at one point in ministry I found my bible reading was largely focused around what I needed to read for work.  I realized my prayer life was centered on concerns related to the ministry.  And my relational circle was largely comprised of people who were associated with the church.

Which would have meant, that if my role at church was to have ended, my faith would have needed a serious reorientation.

Ministry leaders:

When was the last time you prayed about something that has nothing to do with your church, your role, or your ministry?

When was the last time you read through a bible passage that you have zero plans on teaching?

When was the last time you sat down with a friend who doesn’t know and doesn’t care that you’re in ministry?

The best thing you can do as a ministry leader to ensure your faith is vibrant, alive and authentic regardless of what might happen tomorrow is this: pursue a spiritual walk that has little to do with work.

Here are three things you can do to help you pursue that:

Start a bible reading plan that’s completely independent of anything work related.

Pray like you didn’t work for a church.  I’m not saying don’t pray for church related things.  I’m just saying for at least half your prayer time, focus on other things.

Pursue authentic relationships outside your congregation and local ministry network.

Like you, I hope to be at this for decades more.  But maybe one of the keys to keeping that journey fresh and alive is pursuing God like we weren’t in ministry at all.

So today we leave on vacation.  17 days together as a family, including a week with my parents, sisters and their families.  It’s going to be incredibly fun.

And yes, I’m blogging on my holidays.  Here’s why: because it’s 5 a.m. and no one else is up…plus blogging is a way of processing for me.  It’s recreational.

But vacations haven’t always been fun for me.  In fact, they used to stress us out.  I say us, because you should talk to my wife Toni.  My stress stressed out more than just me.

Finally I learned what was making me stressed out and irritable, so over the years I’ve developed some unwritten vacation rules that really help me relax.  I’m writing them down here knowing your rules will be different (please share them), but that these rules have been game changers for me.

1. Prepare for your vacation, don’t just take it. I used to run into my holidays full speed, and it would take me half my holidays to unwind.  For the last week I’ve been catching up on my sleep.  We’ve done a month of vacation prep (it’s a big trip), and we’ve built the anticipation.  I can go into day one vacation fully rested and ready to enjoy (which is why I’m up at 5 a.m.)

2. Equip your team, and yourself, for your break. Leaving work behind is hard work.  I wasn’t good at this for years.  Now I spend at least two weeks before leaving asking “what does my team need while I’m away so they can run optimally and so I can rest?”  If all of that is lined up (I sent out dozens of ‘here’s what you need to look for/know/do when I’m away’ emails to team members before I leave), then they have way they need and I can get what I need: peace of mind, knowing everything will be okay.

3.  Delegate authority and responsibility. While this is good practice all the time, make sure you leave behind real decisions, real authority and real responsibility.  My assistant is handling my email for the entire vacation.  I gave her full authority to do whatever she thinks is best when I’m away.  Other teams are making key decisions while I’m gone.  And I know I will come back simply jump back into their flow.  I barely bought any minutes on my phone for our destination.  In part, because I know they won’t need to call me unless something dire happens.  Getting constant texts, calls and emails from the office while you are a way may be a sign that you haven’t delegated responsibility or authority well.

4.  Find out what fuels you. I have a friend who just got back from a vacation  in Eastern Canada where she stayed at bed and breakfasts, chatted with the locals and went to kitchen parties in people’s homes. She loved it.  I was thrilled for her but for me, that would be the opposite of vacation.  My dream vacation is where I go somewhere with my family,  know no one else and don’t need to talk to anyone who might know me.  I suppose it’s a way to refuel for living in a world where so many people know me and I get stopped for conversation virtually everywhere I go (happens to a lot of us in ministry). Also, camping is my nemesis.  Give me a good hotel and some day trips any day and I’m good to go.  We’ve worked it through as a family to the point where when we do the kind of vacation we’re currently doing, everyone comes back rested and recharged, ready to go.

5.Pick a goal for your holidays. My drivenness can make me feel like I waste time while away.  Other people are spectacular at resting, but I’m not.  So I’ve learned if I pick some goals for my holidays, it makes me feel better.  I have a few goals for this holiday.  One is to make it a great experience for my family.  Another is to read some books. Other objectives include taking (and processing) great photos on the trip and staying fit (brought my running shoes).  I feel less restless and more rested if I set a few goals. I also set a goal to be a worshipper when I’m on holidays.  Because I’m out of my leader’s saddle, I don’t like to skip Sundays.  I want to show up at church and every day in life as a worshipper.  Because in God’s eyes, that’s who I really am anyway, every day.

How about you?  What vacation rules do you have?  Or do you just unplug and think us A types are crazy?