Schedule Everything on Your Calendar
- Use your calendar for more than just meetings.
- Block out time on your calendar for everything you will work on each week.
- Don’t schedule work if it doesn’t fit on the calendar.
- If you miss something, move it on the calendar to the future.
- If someone asks if you have time, check your calendar and count work blocks just like meetings.
Batch Your Work
Batching is simply working on similar things together. It allows you to gain momentum and work faster. Some ways you can batch work to be more productive include:
- Check email three times/day: morning, lunch and at the end of the day.
- Have a block of time (or two) set aside each week to work on the recurring tasks that are similar.
- Bunch meetings together on the same day.
Theme Your Days
One challenge with productivity is jumping from a project to a task, to a meeting, back to the project, to another task, etc. When we work like that, we lose time transitioning from one thing to the next because they’re so different. We never hit a stride. Having themed days allows you to focus and be more productive. Also, it doesn’t have to be a full day. It could be half-days. Theme day examples include:
- A day for meetings
- A day for projects
- A day for tasks/admin/communication
- A day for children’s ministry
- A day for student ministry
- A day for large group
- A day for volunteers
Use a Consistent Process
Something that can negatively impact our productivity is not having a consistent process for how we organize everything we need to do. You can come up with your own system, but I highly recommend the Getting Things Done system, outlined in the book by David Allen.
PRODUCTIVITY IN KIDMIN: TRAININGS
Carey Nieuwhof’s High Impact Leader Course
Michael Hyatt’s Free to Focus Course
Use the Pomodoro Method of Work
Knock Out Big Things First (Learn to Eat “Frogs” for Breakfast)
Learn How to Delegate Things You Shouldn’t Work On
PRODUCTIVITY IN KIDMIN: TOOLS & APPS
Tools and apps will not make you productive on their own. However, if you use them well, they can be a big help. Generally speaking, my core productivity tools and apps include a digital calendar (Google Calendar), reminder app (Toodledo), file storage (Google Drive), note storage (Evernote), a Pomodoro Timer (My Amazon link here) and a really cool physical notepad that can quickly be sent to any/all of your favorite digital places (Rocketbook).
I can share a lot more than that if you want an exhaustive list. Just use the form below to sign up, and I’ll email you some bonus resources, including:
- The 30 Apps We Use To Lead Family Ministry PDF
- Notes from a “Ministry Hacks” Breakout I led along with Jim Wideman at the 2017 Orange Conference
- Another 80+ apps and tools included in the “Ministry Hacks” handout thanks to Corey Jones
This article originally appeared here.
