PastorHacks

Best of 2008: Timebridge

Timebridge

I've been using doodle.ch as a way to cut the hassle of scheduling elder meetings (with 7 elders now, it's a pain in the rear to trade the "I'm available Tuesday at 7!" "Oh, I'm not..." emails among that many).

The person calling the meeting lists their available times and everyone else chimes in on which ones work.

Now here's a new service that seems to do the same, but prettier (doodle.ch is, uh... not flashy, to say the least) and includes Outlook/Google Calendar integration. It also automates the process a bit more, in that if there's a clear winner in everyone's availability, it "schedules" the meeting for you and automatically emails all the participants. I like that.

And if I'm reading it right, it also emails reminders to stragglers who are being pokey about listing their availability. I like that too :) It also gives the option of listing meeting locations (which might change depending on the date), another nice innovation...

It's free, looks nice, cuts a lot of time out of scheduling meetings, iCal integration... What more could you want? 

Check it out!

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I've been using doodle.ch as a way to cut the hassle of scheduling elder meetings (with 7 elders now, it's a pain in the rear to trade the "I'm available Tuesday at 7!" "Oh, I'm not..." emails among that many).

The person calling the meeting lists their available times and everyone else chimes in on which ones work.

Now here's a new service that seems to do the same, but prettier (doodle.ch is, uh... not flashy, to say the least) and includes Outlook/Google Calendar integration. It also automates the process a bit more, in that if there's a clear winner in everyone's availability, it "schedules" the meeting for you and automatically emails all the participants. I like that.

And if I'm reading it right, it also emails reminders to stragglers who are being pokey about listing their availability. I like that too :) It also gives the option of listing meeting locations (which might change depending on the date), another nice innovation...

It's free, looks nice, cuts a lot of time out of scheduling meetings, iCal integration... What more could you want? 

Check it out!

The Art Of Time Management: How To Be Efficient

Good time management involves being both effective and efficient. You have to be able to pick out the right tasks and then do them in the most economical way. In the first part of this series I looked at effectiveness. As I discussed then, that is certainly the most important stage. However it also needs to be tied with efficient work practices to really save you time. It’s no good deciding you’re going to write that life changing book you’ve always wanted to do if you are going to procrastinate all the time. Likewise, focusing on preparations for a big work conference is all well and good but if you’re not breaking the workload down into manageable chunks you’re going to be wasting time.

Unlike effectiveness, there are many, many ways of being efficient. In fact this is pretty much what productivity is (was?) all about. Much of GTD covered how to get work done in the most economical way possible. However, that was also its achilles heel. As Tim Ferriss (of Four Hour Work Week fame) said, doing something unimportant well does not make it important. Trying to detail the hundreds of productivity hacks and good work habits out there in one post is a pretty pointless endeavor so instead I’m going to discuss what I believe is the top fundamental tip for being more efficient.

In the previous post I mentioned Tim Ferriss and how he recommends using the Pareto principle to more effectively choose the right tasks to work on. To complement this, he also encourages people to use Parkinson’s law to become more efficient. In basic terms the law states that work expands to fill the time alloted to it. This typically means that you will idle along at a casual pace because you have so much time available or doing more than is necessary and complicating your work to fill up the time. Thankfully, by some proactivemanipulation, Parkinson’s law can be turned to your advantage...

Read the rest here from Organizeit.co.uk 

  

Busy Pastors... or sinful pastors?

"'The poor man,' we say.'He's so devoted to his flock; the work is endless, and he sacrifices himself so unstintingly.' But the word busy is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront.

Hilary of Tours diagnosed our pastoral busyness as irreligiosa sollicitudo pro Deo, a blasphemous anxiety to do God's work for him. 

I (and most pastors, I believe) become busy for two reasons; both are ignoble.

I am busy because I am vain. I want to appear important. Significant. What better way than to be busy? The incredible hours, the crowded schedule, and the heavy demands on my time are proof to myself- and to all who will notice- that I am important...

I am busy because I am lazy. I indolently let others decide what I will do instead of resolutely deciding myself. I let people who do not understand the work of pastor write the agenda for my day's work because I am too slipshod to write it myself...

... we find ourselves frantically, at the last minute, trying to satisfy a half dozen different demands on our time, none of which is essential to our vocation, to stave off the disaster of disappointing someone.

But if I vainly crowd my day with conspicuous activity or let others fill my day with imperious demands, I don't have time to do my proper work, the work to which I have been called. How can I lead people into the quiet place beside still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?"

-Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor

PastorHack: The Power Nap

About a year ago, I was constantly complaining about how tired I was. I was falling asleep on the couch in the evening, just in time for the kids' bedtime which, suffice it to say, left my wife less than thrilled.

Part of the problem was rising early- I have to get up between 5 and 5:30 if I want to have any quiet time to myself at all in the morning. Part of the problem was also that in an effort to fight the tiredness during the say, I was consuming too much caffeine, making for fitful sleep at best, and often, waking up at 2:30 or 3:30 in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep.

Ultimately, I haven't beat this yet... but two things that have helped greatly have been this:
1. Getting off the coffee- I'm drinking mostly green tea and ZippFizz. Both have caffeine, but significantly less than the drip coffee from Starbucks that my office (uh... Starbucks) serves.
and
2. A 20 minute nap every day I can get it.

Here's what I do- sometime between 11 and 1, depending on my appointment schedule, I head out to my Mazda Tribute with the back seats folded down and lay myself out in the back. I set the timer on the iPhone for 20 minutes and give myself mental permission to be about nothing but resting for that time. I usually drift off to sleep pretty quickly and am surprised when the timer goes off.

It hasn't completely cured me of ever feeling tired (I'm dragging pretty badly this morning), but, man- I have much more energy to make it through the afternoon, dinner and time with the kids in the evening.

You can do this. If you have an office, even better- close the door, turn off the phone and lay on the floor for 20 minutes. You won't believe the difference it makes.

The only trick is to avoid the temptation to sleep longer- any longer than 20 minutes, and you'll be groggy.

Here's an article on exactly this. If you can- choose the nap over the java... better for you in so many ways.

Spotting and Stopping Information Overload

Some good tips from Tim Ferris...

1. Spot the signs. Feel alone even as you communicate with people all day? That’s a signal technology is dominating your life.

2. Take baby steps. Try being inaccessible for short spurts to see what happens. The world probably won’t implode.

3. Repeat these four words: “I have a choice.” People who say, “My boss wants me to be reachable after 8 p.m.” are likely exaggerating the control others have over them.

4. Set limits. Rein in office e-mail and instant message traffic. Who truly needs 35 daily FYIs on the Henderson case?…

5. Give clear instructions. Try an e-mail signature that reads “I answer e-mail at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. If you need a quicker response, please call.”

6. Make a task list. If you’re interrupted, you’ll get back to work faster if you have one.

7. Stick to a schedule. Handle recreational Web surfing and e-mail at set times. Dipping in and out is classic self-interruption.

5 Boundary-Setting Tips for the Work Obsessed

One of the hardest parts about ministry is setting boundaries. After all, if you're cranking widgets, maybe it's a little easier to "leave it at the office." When we're dealing with people's souls? With the Kingdom? A bit harder to just "turn off."

So...

Photo: Taaalia

From the 4-Hour Workweek Blog...

If you are so passionate about your work that you border on obsessed, you might find it near impossible to turn work off.

This is especially so in the web age, when you can stay connected no matter where you are, who you’re with, or what you’re doing. What do you do when suggestions like “work only during certain hours” and “don’t check email on evenings and weekends” just don’t seem to be enough?

Here are five more powerful tricks for keeping work in its place…

1. Choose flow-inducing hobbies that really engage you and pull your mind away from work.

Flow is a sense of effortless engagement in what you’re doing. You’ll find it in activities that have clear objectives and challenge you just a bit beyond your current level of skill. What kind of hobbies can produce flow? Sports like skiing or martial arts, art like painting or pottery, games like poker or bridge, and puzzles like crosswords or sudoku are a few examples. Such activities will lure you away from work because, unlike passive activities like watching TV, they can provide the same sense of engagement and challenge that your work life offers.

2. Set goals in your personal life just like you do in your professional life.

Working towards goals is a sure way of getting yourself excited enough about non-work activities that you can pull yourself away work. This tip works in tandem with the first, because goal-oriented activities are more likely to provide a sense of flow than activities taken on for simple recreation and relaxation. Tim Ferriss describes a process he calls “dreamlining” [sample worksheets and excel tools here] for applying timelines to your life goals and dreams — that’s a great way to make your personal goals just as actionable as your work projects.

3. Schedule dates with other people for non-work activities.

For example, schedule a workout session with a personal trainer, arrange to meet a friend for happy hour after work, or make weekend plans with your friends or family to go hiking. Solo plans are easier to break in favor of work; if you have a commitment to another person you’ll be more likely to shut the laptop and mobile phone off.

read the rest here

The Qualified Yes...

I've blogged before on the beauty of saying no... But is "Yes!" or "No!" the only two options I have when someone asks for a piece of my time?

Well...

Merlin Mann points us to a great third option: The Qualified Yes.

"I’ve had a habit over the years of allowing myself to get so busy that “no” becomes my default answer to practically every question — this has been especially true when it came to helping with friends’ projects or doing non-paying work for worthy causes.
Obviously, in many ways it’s healthy to learn how to say no; you avoid over-committing by ensuring that you’ve thought through all the work on your plate and then never take on new commitments without knowing there’s room to spare.
The good news is that there’s actually an even healthier middle path between “Sure. Anything you say” and “No way. Never.” I call it “the qualified ‘yes.’”
When people ask me to start a new project of any kind — and assuming it is something I’m actually interested in doing — I try to set reasonable boundaries and expectations on how actively I’ll participate as well as how much time and availability I can afford to spend on it. The key for me has been to set fairly hard numerical caps on time, access, and the amount of attention that I want to contribute — and to do so early in the life of the relationship. Here’s the way I put it in that post from December 2004:
So, what used to be “Sure, I’ll do your web site” is now more often “Sure, I’ll give you 10 hours and 3 calls over the next month to use however you want.” If nothing else, it helps everyone understand that time is a precious commodity, but it also gets me out of being the de facto manager for every aspect of a project I touch."

Read the rest here

How to Shave Ten Hours Off Your Week

Michael Hyatt, (no relation... or maybe there is? Hey Uncle Michael! Can I borrow $5... or a publishing deal?? A PastorHacks book! Call me...) President and CEO of Thomas Nelson has some great, common sense wisdom for shaving 10 hours off your week...

1. Limit the time you spend online. In my experience, the Web is most people’s #1 time suck. Yes, I know it is a wonderful tool for research, blah, blah, blah. But I often catch myself and my family members mindlessly surfing from one page to another with no clear objective in mind. Before you know it, you can eat up several hours a day. The key is to put a fence around this activity and limit your time online. Set a timer for yourself if you have to.
   
   This is true for Web surfing and it is also true for email. Unless you are in a customer service position where you have to be “always-on,” you should check email no more than two or three times a day.
   
2. Touch email messages once and only once. Okay, let’s be honest. How many times do you read the same email message over and over again? Guess what? The information hasn’t changed. That’s right. You are procrastinating.
   
   I have a personal rule: I will only read each message once then take the appropriate action: do, delegate, defer, file or delete it. I describe these in more detail in a post I made last week.
   
3. Follow the two-minute rule. My to-do list is very short. It never gets longer than about thirty items. This is because I do everything I can immediately. If I need to make a phone call, rather than entering it on my to-do list, I just make the call.
   
   If I can complete the action in less than two minutes, I just go ahead and do it. Why wait? You will be amazed at how much this “bias toward action” will reduce your workload.
   
   Conversely, when you don’t do it promptly, you end up generating even more work for yourself and others. The longer a project sits, the longer it takes to overcome inertia and get it moving again. The key is to define the very next action and do it. You don’t have to complete the whole project, just the next action.
   
4. Stop attending low-impact meetings. If there’s one thing we can probably all agree on, it’s that we go to too many meetings.

Read the rest here

Cell Sin...

Driscoll on Cell Sin:

"This past summer I enjoyed some great vacation time with my wife of fifteen years, Grace, and our five children. We went to the high desert and spent most of our time enjoying the sunshine by playing catch, swimming in pools, inner tubing down rivers, going for walks and the like. For the first time in my life, I actually did not turn on my cell phone and did not take any calls or emails while on vacation. I made it a full three weeks of fasting from digital demons such as my BlackBerry, iPod, and second cell phone. Within a few days I also stopped wearing a watch and stopped really caring about time and instead enjoyed my wife, kids, and vacation. In short, it was wonderful. Unplugging my technology and simply having nothing on my body that required a battery seemed like a new kind of spiritual discipline for our age that refreshed and renewed me more than I could have imagined."
and
"I know in years past I too have been guilty of these same digital sins against God, my family, and my own well-being. Now that I see it as a sin that destroys silence, solitude, fellowship, prayerful listening, and meaningfully and attentive friendship, I am deeply convicted that there is a new spiritual discipline of fasting from technology to be mastered. In this way, we can enjoy the life and people that God puts in front of us rather than ignoring them while we peck away with our thumbs and chat about nothing, which in the end is rarely as important as the people we are ignoring all around us."

Read the rest here

15 Ways to get 2 more hours a day...

From RirianProject.com

“For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.”

Do you want to make better use of your time? If so, you’re not alone. We all want to be more productive in order to get ahead in our lives.

Time management is really about managing yourself. It’s about making a commitment to be more organized, maintain your focus and use your time to your best advantage. You probably know that effective time management will help you get more done each day. But it has important health benefits, too. By managing your time more wisely, you can minimize stress and improve your quality of life.

Whether you’re a time-tested veteran or a promising rookie, the following tips will help you reclaim some precious hours.

1. Make lists.

Making a list externalizes your worries. In your mind, tasks can get intertwined. On paper you can divide and conquer, crossing them off as you go.

2. Learn to BANJO.

BANJO is an acronym for “Bang A Nasty Job Off”. Doing anything gives you a sense of achievement, but getting something really unpleasant out of the way makes you feel even better. That task may seem trivial, but it’ll distract you until you do it.

3. Slam junk.

Wading through the latest ‘unmissable’ offers from some pizza delivery or loan companies is the last thing you need when you’re legging it to work. The average adult spends three minutes a day opening and disposing billions of unsolicited items delivered every year. Remove your name from 95% of direct mail lists through mail preference service. And with each fragment of rainforest that lands on your mat, ask yourself: What’s the worst that could happen if I bin this? If you can live with the answer, it’ll save hours of unnecessary filing.

4. Morning glory.

Unless you fancy the cleaner, staying late at the office is a waste of time. Our natural bodily rhythms make us most alert between eight and nine in the morning. Arrive an hour early and you’ll get through the equivalent of two hours of post-6pm work. So you can leave on time.

Read the rest here

(ht: lifehack.org)