David Allen to Pastors...

David Allen, Author of Getting Things Done, speaks directly to Pastors in this interview from HomileticsOnline:

HOMILETICS: Pastors consider themselves to be very busy people doing ministry that has a high level of value for them. They manage a core group of volunteers; they visit the sick in the hospital, the troubled in their homes; they attend meetings, and they’re also expected to have time to prepare for a sermon, plan the worship experience and so on. What advice do you have for them?

ALLEN: It’s the advice I have for anyone who has to maintain an inventory of what I call open loops, that is, things that you’re committed to do but you can’t finish when you think of it, but you have to keep track of it.

You need a whole series of “best practices” and techniques — to be able to manage that, you have to be able to know that you’ve captured the inventory of what those are, that you’ve clarified what those are, that you’ve organized the results of those in coherent way, so that when you’re doing whatever you’re doing — whether you’re visiting in someone’s house or writing a sermon — you don’t have the rest of that inventory encroaching on your psyche so that you can be fully available to whatever you’re doing when you’re doing it.

But your brain won’t let you loose from that until it trusts that there’s a better system than it. You can fool me, but not your brain. And so the problem is that your system isn’t better than your brain, your brain keeps trying to do it but it doesn’t do it very well, it gets it all mixed up, it tries to do everything at once, there’s no sense of past or future in there, so you feel you should be doing that “other thing” even though you can’t be doing it right now, but part of you thinks you should be doing it right now.

The basic message is that it’s possible to be fully available for whatever you’re doing with no sense of being overwhelmed, have time disappear and be totally on with what you’re doing, and still be buried in your life, but you don’t get that for free! You have to maintain these best practices that manage this.

HOMILETICS: So you have a message of hope! [laughter]

ALLEN: It’s not a belief system. You can test it out. It’s pure mechanics: You do this, you produce this result. Your mind is made for having ideas, not for holding ideas.

HOMILETICS: An ancient rabbi was once asked to explain or define his faith while standing on one foot. So he recited the Shema. Standing on one foot, what is the “Getting Things Done” or GTD system?

ALLEN: Keep it all out of your head, determine specifically what the outcomes and the action steps on actionable items are, parse that thinking into trusted places, review them and reflect on them as appropriate, and trust your heart in terms of your choices and options.

HOMILETICS: I believe you could have said that standing on one foot! [laughter] You say that you can’t do projects and pastors are very project oriented, they’ve got balls in the air all the time. We’re going into Lent, the Lenten brochure needs to be printed, the Bible study needs to be organized and so on. What do you mean that we can’t “do” projects?

Read the rest here...

Comments

[jim]

Hi Bob,

How do you like Homeletics on-line?

Looks like a good resource, but I'm usually preaching from the lectionary or doing a sermon series on a specific topic, so I'm not sure how helpful I would find it.

But it does look like they have some good interviews from a broad theological spectrum which is something I like.

Any thoughts?

[bob]

I haven't looked around it very much. It seems to be a pay-subscription service which I shy away from. Later this week I'm posting on Wikiletics.com, which is closer to the lectionary style of preaching- make sure to check that out.

[jim]

thanks, that looks pretty sweet!

[Jason]

I'm sure you've seen this already and have plans to post a link but Merlin Mann and David Allen are doing a podcast at www.43folders.com -- today is the first episode on 'Procrastination.' Great stuff!

Thank you for posting this link!