You’re in ministry. You’re faithful, you’re working hard, and you’re concerned that key tasks aren’t getting done. You wonder, “What can I do? I don’t think I can work harder, or my health and relationships will suffer. What can I do?”
 
Well, what can you do? You can focus on working smarter, not harder. Here are 5 things you can do to work smarter:
 
(1) Join God in what He's already doing. God has a plan. He’s already at work. And He’s prepared ways for you to join Him in His work (Eph. 2.10). So, you have the opportunity to be part of God’s plan and work. You don’t have to go figure it all out by yourself or do it all by yourself. You can work smarter by joining God in what He’s already doing.
 
(2) Ask God for help. God knows everything and wants to help you. So, ask Him for help. Ask Him what your ministry goals should be. Ask Him to help you carry out your ministry goals effectively and efficiently. And ask Him to help you work smarter, not harder. Work smarter by asking God for help.
 
(3) Document your ministry goals. Having documented goals makes is possible for you to easily review your goals, to schedule your next action steps, and to find out what your goals are when you can’t remember them (something which happens to everyone).
 
(4) Take time to reflect. Take time to step back, review progress, and determine next steps. You can do this for 5 minutes at the end of each day, for 1 hour at the end of each week, for 2 hours at the end of each quarter, and for 4 hours at the end of each year. Work smarter by taking time to reflect.
 
(5) Empower others to solve problems. The more others can solve problems, the less you have to solve the problems. You can empower others to solve problems by asking questions like the following: What’s the problem? How do others see this problem? What criteria do you want to use to solve this problem? What can you do to solve this problem?
 
Bottom line: Find ways to work smarter.
 
*How can you help others to work smarter? By asking questions like:

1. What’s your ministry?
2. How do you feel about your ministry and your workload?
3. How interested are you in getting more done in the same amount of time?
4. What helps you work efficiently and effectively? What doesn’t help you?
5. What can you do to work smarter?
6. What will you do?

Reflect on your goals daily, weekly, quarterly, and annually.

You want to achieve your mission. So, you get out of the office and take time to identify 5 key goals. Good. When you return to the office, you focus on achieving your goals all week. Good.
 
And then things head downhill:

• In week #2, you notice that you’re not quite as focused on your goals.
• In week #3, you have a crazy week where you can’t work on your goals.
• By week #4, you can’t remember 2 of your goals. Not good.

 
Question: What’s the problem?
 
Answer: You didn’t document your goals.
 
This means…

• You can’t easily review your goals.
• You can’t easily use your goals to schedule your next action steps.
• You can’t easily find out what your goals are when you can’t remember them (something which happens to everyone).

Tip: Document your goals. Today.

You want improve in planning. You know this is going to feel like climbing a steep set of steps, so you decide to take it 1 step at a time.
 
Question: How can you climb the next step?
 
To find out:

• Read about the 5 developmental steps (below).
• Then, use some reflection questions to identify what you will do to climb the next step.

 
Here are the 5 steps:
 
Step 1: You work.
You’re a missionary, you’re out of language school, and you’ve just started doing full-time ministry. You’re sitting in a room, getting introduced to other missionaries. Each person introduces him/herself by name and job title. Your turn comes, and you say, “Roger, evangelist.”
 
A few weeks later, you’re out walking in your neighborhood. You’re feeling a little fuzzy about your ministry. And you find yourself thinking, “What’s my plan?” A few days later, you take time to pray and to write out your plan. It describes the activities you want to do, for example, teaching English Bible classes, making and distributing tracts, and talking with those in your neighborhood. You look at your plan and feel better.
 
 
Step 2: You work, and you have a documented plan.
You look at your plan every once in awhile. But you notice that having a plan hasn’t helped you as much you thought it would. You think maybe that’s because your plan isn’t as good as it should be. You wonder, “How good is my plan?”
 
You take a look at your plan, pray, and decide to revise it. Instead of just listing your activities, you decide to:

• List your overarching ministry purpose, the 4-6 goals you need to accomplish in order to achieve your overarching ministry purpose, and the key activities you need to do for each of your goals.
• Make everything SMART: Specific • Measurable • Attainable • Relevant • Timebound.
• Keep your plan to 1 page.

 
Step 3: You work, and you have good documented plan.
You continue to look at your plan every once in awhile. And you notice that upgrading your plan hasn’t helped you as much you thought it would. You find yourself asking, “How can I really use my plan?”
 
A couple of days later, you read an article about paying attention to your goals. The article suggests that you review your goals on a daily, weekly, quarterly, and annual basis. You pray about it and decide to do this. And you decide to measure your progress on your goals and to reflect each month by talking with a fellow missionary about ministry progress. You know that reviewing your goals, measuring your progress, and reflecting will take time, but you think it’ll be worth it.
 
 
Step 4: You intentionally use your plan to guide your work.
As a result of reviewing your goals, measuring your progress, and reflecting, you find that you’re using your plan a lot more to guide your work. And you find that you’re more clear about what you want to accomplish. So, you improve your plan by putting in better activities, revising your goals, and by tightening the alignment between your overarching ministry purpose, goals, and activities. You share your “improved” plan with colleagues, invite feedback, and use feedback to further improve your plan.

In addition, you increasingly recognize that you have limited time, energy, and abilities. You find yourself wondering, “How can I manage myself better? How can I get more focused, work smarter, and pursue excellence?”
 
You pray, watch a video, read an article, take a self-assessment, and explore getting a coach. As a result, you decide to get a coach. Your coach empowers you to:

• Identify what helps you focus.
• Target your strengths and reduce your frustrations.
• Determine the amount of time you will invest in each goal.
• Identify 3 articles you will read about best practices in evangelism.

 
Step 5: You think success is being a person who is focused, works smart, and pursues excellence.
As a result of working with your coach and using your plan to guide your work, you find that you’re more focused, working smarter, and intentionally pursuing excellence.
 
And you’ve shifted your thinking about success. Instead of thinking that success is having a plan or even achieving a plan, you now think success is being a person who is focused, works smart, and pursues excellence—as evidenced by the achievement of your plan.
 
You’re wondering, “How can I empower others to strategically pursue God’s calling?” You pray, and you watch a video and take a self-assessment on leading by asking questions. And you decide to apply your learning to empower others to reflect, get clear, focus, prioritize, and pay attention to their goals.
 
 
Now, ask yourself the following 5 questions:

1. Which “step” best describes me? (Be brutally honest. When doubt, choose the earlier stage.)
2. How do I feel about being on this “step”?
3. In terms of climbing the next step, what helps/hinders me?
4. To climb the next step, what do I need to keep doing? start doing? stop doing?
5. What will I do to climb the next step?

Improve your planning. Start climbing the next step. Today.

Reflecting on 4 questions can help you figure out how much time you should invest in each of your goals.

You want to carry out your God-given mission: To empower Christian leaders and organizations to close the rhetoric/reality gap.
 
You have reflected on your mission, prayed and thought about what God would have you do in the next 5 years, and established a 2-part vision:

1. 200 Christian staff from 40 Christian organizations with increased capacity/results
2. 15 Christian organizations with total of 25 new annual capacity-building goals

You have also developed goals that address your vision: To increase capacity/results for…

• 30 Christian staff through coaching
• 75 Christian staff through consulting
• 40 Christian staff through networking
• 40 Christian staff through resourcing
• 150 Christian staff through training

Question: How much time do you want to invest in each of your goals?
 
One way you can determine how much time you want to invest is by reflecting on a set of DRAW questions:

• Define: Get the facts defined.
• Respond: Get the facts responded to in terms of feelings/experiences.
• Analyze: Get the facts, feelings, and experiences analyzed.
• What’s next?: Get next steps considered.

 
 
Here's a set of DRAW questions you can use to determine how much time you want to invest in each goal:
 
Define: Get the facts defined.

1. What’s your mission?
2. What’s your vision?
3. What are your goals for moving forward on your vision?

Respond: Get the facts responded to in terms of feelings/experiences.
What excites/concerns you about your mission? vision? goals?
 
Analyze: Get the facts, feelings, and experiences analyzed.

1. In terms of helping you accomplish your vision, how would you priority rank your goals?
2. How much time do you currently invest in each goal?
3. To achieve your vision, how much time do you want to invest in each goal?
4. How do your priority rankings (question 1) and preferred time investments (question 3) compare?
5. What helps you move toward your preferred time investments? What hinders you?

 
What’s next?: Get next steps considered.

1. What can you do to move toward your preferred time investments?
2. What will you do?

---

To see how reflecting on these questions helped me to determine how much time to invest in each of my goals, keep reading.
 
What’s your God-given mission?
Me: To empower Christian leaders and organizations to close the rhetoric/reality gap. By that I mean, to close the gap between the word of the mission statement and the reality of the current situation.
 
 
What’s your vision?
Me: By the end of 5 years, I want to see 200 Christian staff from 40 Christian organizations with increased capacity/results. And I want to see 15 Christian organizations with a total of 25 new annual capacity-building goals.


What are your goals for moving forward on your vision?
Me: To achieve my vision, I want to help Christian staff increase capacity/results through coaching, consulting, networking, resourcing, and training. Within the next 2 years, I want to have empowered:

• 30 staff through coaching
• 75 staff through consulting
• 40 staff through networking
• 40 staff through resourcing
• 150 staff through training

 
Some people might only get empowered through coaching. Others might get empowered through training and consulting. So for my goals, I can count a person in more than 1 category. But ultimately, I just want to empower 200 Christians. I just want to achieve my vision.
 
 
What excites/concerns you about your mission? vision? goals?
Me: God has put it on my heart to encourage Christian leaders and to help them and their organizations achieve their missions. I’m excited about this. It really turns my crank to help leaders strategically pursue God’s calling.
 
What concerns me about the mission God has given me is that Christian leaders don’t always seek or welcome being empowered. For example, they sometimes think of empowerment as remediation, instead of as a way to more effectively leverage the gifts God has given them. And if I write an email to encourage a leader on a goal he’s identified (How’s it going with___?), sometimes I’m concerned that he might think I’m checking up on him.
 
In terms of vision, I’m excited about helping a lot of Christian staff that serve in a variety of Christian organizations. And I’m excited about helping organizations set capacity-building goals—I like a challenge. But I’m concerned that I might not be able to connect with enough staff and organizations.
 
I like my goals. I like coaching, consulting, networking, resourcing, and training. But it’s hard to know how to set goals that are both aggressive and attainable because its hard to gauge how many people I’ll be able to help in the next 2 years.
 
 
In terms of helping you achieve your vision, how would you priority rank your goals?
Me: Before I listed only 5 areas—coaching, consulting, networking, resourcing, and training. I need to add a 6th area—mobilizing. I need to do this because I’m a missionary. To do this ministry, I need to raise support. OK, so in terms of helping me empower Christian leaders and organizations, I’d priority rank my goals like this:

1. Consulting
2. Training
3. Coaching
4. Resourcing
5. Networking
6. Mobilizing

 
Here’s my thinking:

1. Consulting: Through consulting, I can address both parts of my vision. I can help Christian staff grow individually, and I can help organizations set goals. Last year through consulting, I helped 64 people, and I helped 11 organizations set a total of 11 goals.
2. Training: I can help the greatest number of Christian staff through training. Last year, I helped 110 people through training.
3. Coaching: As with consulting, I use coaching to address both parts of my vision. But last year I helped more people through consulting (64) and training (110) than through coaching (20), so I ranked as this #3. Coaching is a powerful way to follow-up on consulting and training.
4. Resourcing: In order to consult, train, and coach, I need to know what I’m doing and I need to get known. Developing resources provides me with the knowledge and tools I need to help others; publishing resources helps me get known. And the feedback I get indicates that the resources I publish help Christian staff increase their capacity/results.
5. Networking: One way I help Christian staff is by developing networks and by networking with individuals. And one way I get opportunities to consult, train, and coach is by networking. I’m vacillating between ranking this as #4 or #5. But right now, I’ll keep it as #5.
6. Mobilizing: I put mobilizing at the bottom because this goal doesn’t directly address my vision. I recognize the importance of mobilizing—if I don’t mobilize effectively, I won’t be able to raise the funds I need to do this ministry.

 
How much time do you currently invest in each goal?
Me: Probably something like this:

1. Consulting: 30%
2. Training: 5%
3. Coaching: 10%
4. Resourcing: 40%
5. Networking: 5%
6. Mobilizing: 10%

 
To achieve your vision, how much time do you want to invest in each goal?
Me: Well, I probably need to keep investing the same amount of time in networking and mobilizing. And I need to increase training and coaching. By increasing training, I can help more people. By increasing coaching, I can help Christian staff achieve lasting growth. As I mentioned earlier, coaching is a good way to follow-up on consulting and training.
 
If I increase training and coaching, I’ll have to invest less time in consulting and resourcing. So, my preferred time investments would probably look like this:

1. Consulting: 25%
2. Training: 15%
3. Coaching: 15%
4. Resourcing: 30%
5. Networking: 5%
6. Mobilizing: 10%

 
How do your priority rankings and preferred time investments compare?
Me: Pretty well, I think. Resourcing (ranked #4) provides the basis for what I do, so it makes sense that I invest the biggest amount of time (30%) in it. I feel good that my top 3 priorities receive the next biggest amounts of time. I like it that in my preferred time investments, my top 3 priorities get 55% of my time—this is 10% over my current investment in my top 3 priorities.
 
 
What helps you move toward your preferred time investments? What hinders you?
Me: What helps me is that I like training and coaching, so having more time for both of those will be fun. What hinders me is that I really like consulting and resourcing—having less time for both is kind of a bummer. But I think I need to head in this direction.
 
 
What can you do to move toward your preferred time investments?
Me: I can get more opportunities to train and coach by asking administrators and human resource personnel about what their organizational needs are. I can ask individuals what their personnel needs are. For example, I can ask those I’ve helped through consulting about getting coaching to follow through on the goals they set. I can find additional ways to provide training—like webinars.
 
I can also monitor the amount of time I invest in resource development more carefully. That should help me decrease it.
 
 
What will you do?
Me: I’ll take a couple of hours to explore webinars and the possibility of doing 1-4 of them within the next 12 months. I’ll ask the administrators/human resource personnel from 1 Christian school and 3 missions about what their needs are and how I can help them meet those needs through training and coaching. After seeing what happens as a result of taking these 2 action steps, I’ll consider contacting 5 people that I’ve helped through consulting or training to see if they’d like coaching to help them follow up.

Make sure you schedule time for your key priorities before you schedule time for other things.

You’re at the end of a hectic week, the kind where you can hardly remember what happened. You’re sitting at your desk, doing some reflection. You’re noticing that you’ve accomplished some goals (building your network list and preparing a message) and that you haven’t accomplished some other goals (developing a debriefing tool and a conflict resolution workshop). You wonder why some goals get done, while others don’t.
 
Then it hits you.
 
You paid attention to networking and preparing a message. You didn’t pay attention to developing the debriefing tool and the conflict resolution workshop.
 
Tip: Pay attention to your goals—because what you pay attention to gets done.
 
Question: What can help you pay attention to your goals?
 
Answer: A review system. A review system that you use on a daily, weekly, quarterly, and annual basis:

1. Daily review: Take 5 minutes at the end of each day to review progress on your goals and to look at your schedule for the next day.
2. Weekly review: Take 30 minutes at the end of each week to review progress on your goals, determine your action steps for the next week, and schedule your action steps.
3. Quarterly review: Take 1-2 hours to review your goals, your progress, what helps/hinders you, and what you want to accomplish for each goal in the next 90 days.
4. Annual review: Take 2 or more hours to review your goals and the progress you’ve made, to establish your goals for the coming year, and to identify what you want to accomplish for each goal in the next 90 days.

Remember: What you pay attention to gets done.

*Ciick here to watch a video about paying attetion to your goals.

The point is not to have goals. The point is to achieve goals. To achieve your goals, take 4 steps: pray, put, take, and reflect.

You’re pursuing God’s calling. Good. Three weeks ago, you developed a list 5 goals that are part of pursuing God’s calling:

1. Pray more.
2. Make spouse happy.
3. Answer email immediately.
4. Coach students.
5. Provide training for Christian schools.

Now, you’re seated at your desk, reflecting on your goals. Good. You notice that you haven’t made any progress. You’re puzzled. You want to work on your goals—so motivation is not the issue. Yes, you have been busy the past 3 weeks, but you did have time to work on your goals—so time is not the issue. You just feel like it’s hard to get started. You look at your goals, and you find it hard to get traction.
 
Question: What can you do?
 
Answer: Make each of your goals SMART. What do I mean by SMART?
 
A SMART goal is:

1. Specific: A specific goal identifies a concrete task. Instead of having the general goal of praying more, use the specific goal of praying 15 minutes each weekday morning.
2. Measurable: Progress on a measurable goal can be readily tracked. Instead of having a general goal of making your spouse happy, use a measurable goal like going out for monthly dates with your spouse.
3. Attainable: An attainable goal is a challenging goal that you can accomplish. Instead of setting an unattainable goal like answering all your email immediately, set an attainable goal of answering all email within 48 hours.
4. Relevant: A relevant goal is one that is aligned with your values and mission. If you value empowering others and your mission is to empower leaders of Christian organizations, focus on coaching leaders of Christian organizations, not students.
5. Time-bound: A time-bound goal is one that has a realistic deadline. Instead of having an open-ended goal of providing training for Christian schools, use the measurable, time-bound goal of providing 5 workshops by April 30.

Situation: You have 30 minutes to work on a goal. Which goal is easier to get started on?

• Goal A: Write an article.
• Goal B: By the 22nd of this month, write a 500-word article for Christian school teachers on SMART goals.

Answer: I picked Goal B. I think you did, too. Why didn’t I pick Goal A? Because I needed answers to the following questions before I could get started: What’s the topic? Who’s the audience? How many words? When’s it due?
 
I didn’t pick Goal A because it wasn’t SMART.
 
Question: Does making goals SMART really help?
 
Answer: Yes. Here’s what staff at Christian Academy in Japan have to say:

1. Kim Essenburg (English 10): SMART goals help me focus. For example, last year our English Department had a goal of meeting every other month to discuss teaching reading strategies—because we wanted to help our students improve their reading skills. Having a goal that specified the purpose and frequency of our meetings helped us get started and stay with it.
2. Jennifer Robinson (curriculum coordinator): We use the SMART-goal format when presenting our school improvement goals. We do this because we want to provide our staff with clear expectations—including by when we want to accomplish our goals.
3. Stephen Willson (facilities manager): The SMARTer the goals are, the easier it to understand and complete the task. For example, when someone brings a broken desk to our shop and doesn’t specify where the desk should be returned to, it’s harder to achieve the goal of having the fixed desk returned to the right room.

Bottom line: Making your goals SMART helps you clarify what you want to achieve and, consequently, helps you get started more quickly. 
 
SMARTen up your goals. Today.

Goals help. Goals help you get focused, get energized, get organized, and know what to say “yes” and “no” to.
 
But having goals is not enough. You don’t just want to have goals—you want to achieve goals. You want to achieve your goals in order to pursue your God-given calling. Is there something you can to do increase the likelihood that you’ll achieve your goals? Yes!
 
These four steps can help:

1. Pray. Ask God to guide you as you select goals and to provide the support, encouragement, and accountability you need to achieve your goals.
2. Put your goals on paper. Write them down. The act of writing your goals down will deepen your commitment to them. And if you write your goals down, you can easily review them.
3. Take one or more action steps on each goal every week. And make sure each action step is SMART (Specific • Measurable • Attainable • Relevant • Timebound). The SMARTer your action step, the more likely you’ll complete it. For example, imagine your goal is managing your email. Instead of identifying your action step as “only working on email at certain times,” identify your action step as “doing email for 30 minutes two times per day (11:30-12:00, 4:00-4:30), starting Wednesday.”
4. Reflect on your progress with a friend each week. Tell your friend the progress you’ve made on each action step and what your action steps are for the coming week.

Knowing where you are and where you want to go helps you make effective decisions:

• You’re at the train station. You need to buy a ticket. How much should you spend? That depends on where you are and where you want to go. If you’re in Ikebukro and want to go to Higashi Kurume, you need a ¥260 ticket; however, if you’re in Higashi Kurume and want to go to Tokorozawa, you need a ¥170 ticket.
  
• You’re planting a church. You want the church to become independent. What you focus on? That depends on where you are and where you want to go. If you have a pastor, sufficient giving, a facility, but not the requisite 2 elders, you need to focus on getting 2 elders; however, if you have a pastor, a facility, 2 elders, but not the requisite giving, you need to focus on increasing giving.
  
• You’re coaching basketball. It’s half-time. What do you want to tell your players? That depends on where you are and where you want to go. If you’re winning 29-8 and you don’t want to run up the score, you need to tell your players not to press and not to fastbreak; however, if you’re losing 8-29, you tell need to tell your players to press and fastbreak.
  
• You’re leading a school. Your goal is for 90% of your students to score at or above standard on each of your schoolwide learning outcomes. What do you want your teachers to focus on? That depends on where you are and where you want to go. For example, f 90% of your students perform at or above standard on applying a Biblical perspective, while 50% perform at or above standard on using their learning to serve others, you need to focus your teachers on helping students use their learning to serve others.

Bottom line #1: Know where you are and where you want to go.

Bottom line #2: To know where you are and where you want to go, take 5 steps:

1. Define what it takes to achieve the mission—for example, publishing and networking.
   
2. Transform your definition of mission achievement into SMART goals. For example, change “Publish” to “Publish 10 articles by June 30.” Or, change “Network” to “Start 5 communities of practice by Sept. 15.”
   
3. Measure the current achievement of your SMART goals. If your goal is to publish 10 articles this year, count how many articles you’ve already published. If your goal is to start 5 communities of practice, count how many communities of practice you’ve already started.
   
4. Consistently track your progress. Set aside time each week or each month to track your progress. This takes discipline, but doing this gives you the information you need to make effective decisions.
   
5. Regularly ask yourself 5 questions: What are my goals? What’s the current achievement level of each of my goals? Regarding the achievement of my goals, what satisfies/concerns me? Given that I have finite resources, which goals should I prioritize? For each prioritized goal, what key actions can I take? (Even better, get someone to ask you these questions on a weekly or monthly basis. How about getting a coach?)

Know where you are and where you want to go. Work smart. Today.

You’re focusing on working smart, not hard. And you want to move forward on this. Good.

What can you do? Define your goals. How? By making your goals SMART:

• Specific
  
• Measurable
  
• Attainable
  
• Relevant
  
• Timebound

For example:

• Change “Get exercise” to “Starting Monday, jog 20 minutes 3 times a week.”
  
• Change “Get organized” to “By Friday at 4:30, properly file all the files that are stacked on my desk.”
  
• Change “Take on less” to “Starting tomorrow, say ‘yes’ only to requests that are directly related to the curriculum improvement plan.”

Making your goals SMART takes discipline, but doing so helps you clarify what you want to achieve. Knowing what you want to achieve helps you make better decisions about what to do next. And making better decisions means working smart.

To SMARTen up a goal, answer questions like:

• Specific: What do you mean by ___? (What do you mean by “exercise”?)
  
• Measurable: How will you know when you’ve achieved your goal?
  
• Attainable: How doable is this?
  
• Relevant: How will this goal help you?
  
• Timebound: When will you do this?

Remember, focus on working smart, not hard. Define your goals. Today.

Your organization’s budget system works:

• Your organization uses common categories and common line items.
  
• Individuals track expenditures.
  
• Individual data is compiled into the overall budget.
  
• Your organization uses budget data to make decisions.

What if your organization could do the same with its mission?

What if your organization “budgetized” its mission?

• What if your organization used a common definition of mission achievement, complete with common goals?
  
• What if individuals tracked progress on goals?
  
• What if individual data was compiled so that it showed progress on goals and, consequently, on the mission?
  
• What if your organization used mission achievement data to make decisions?

A scorecard can help you “budgetize” your mission. Use a scorecard today.

I don’t try to manage certain things. I don’t try to manage gravity. I don’t try to manage the revolution of the planets around the sun or the rotation of the earth on its axis. And I don’t try to manage sunrise or sunset.

Actually, I am utterly incapable of managing any of these. The good news is that God, who does manage these, doesn’t ask me to.

I don’t try to manage the entirety of God’s creation, and I’ve stopped trying to manage a certain part of God’s creation. Why? Because my efforts have been about as effective as any attempt I would make to manage gravity. In other words, useless. Completely useless.

No matter what I do, I can’t change the amount I receive. I set and work at goals to change the amount, but I get exactly the same amount. And to make matters worse, I can’t even affect the rate at which I receive it. I set and work at goals to change the rate, and I get it at exactly the same rate.

What have I stopped trying to manage? Time. Why? First, I’m a time-bound being. I’m trapped in time, and there is no escape. Second, whether I like it or not, I receive the same amount of time each day. And third, no matter what I do, I receive time at the same rate: 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day. I can’t make a day 40 hours long. Can you? I can’t even add 1 second to a day. Can you?

Simply put, I am completely unable to manage time. My efforts to manage time are as effective as any attempt I would make to manage the revolution of the planets around the sun or the earth’s rotation on its axis. Let me be frank: your efforts to manage time are as effective as any attempt you would make to manage sunset. When’s the last time you set a goal to change the time of sunset and it worked, even to an infinitesimal degree?

However, the good news is that God manages time. And the good news is that what God calls us to do is to manage ourselves within the time he gives us. So, it’s how you manage yourself within time, not how you manage time. In other words, focus on yourself (which you can affect), not on time (which you can’t affect).

Practical implications?

• Stop asking “How can I get more time?” and “How can I use my time effectively?” Start asking “How can I manage myself effectively within the time God gives me?”
  
• Stop saying things like “I need 30-hour days” and “I need 10-day weeks.” Start realizing that when you say things like that, you’re commenting on how effectively you manage yourself and/or your level of trust that God gives you what you need.
  
• Stop trying to manage time. Start focusing on managing yourself.

To increase your focus on self-management, reflect on 1 or more of the following:

1. Do right things, then do things right. Make sure you are working on the truly important before you spend time fine-tuning what you are working on. This is a challenge. Why? Because it is easier, for example, to edit than it is to develop high quality content. Discipline yourself do right things, then do things right.
   
2. Focus. On your God-given mission. This means saying “no” to certain requests, and saying “no” takes discipline.
   
3. Think big. Expand your vision. Play a bigger game. Regularly ask yourself questions like “What 3 dreams do I want to realize?” and “What 3 things could I do in the next 30 days that would make a real difference?”
   
4. Define your goals. Consistently make your goals SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timebound. Making your goals SMART takes discipline, but doing so helps you clarify what you want to achieve. And knowing what you want to achieve helps you make better decisions about what to do next.
   
5. Know the score. Know where you are in terms of achieving your goals. Consistently track your progress. This takes discipline, but doing so will help you make effective decisions about what to do next.
   
6. Schedule your big priorities first, your smaller priorities next, and so forth. Don’t schedule renewing the newspaper, for example, before you schedule your key ministry goals. Discipline yourself to do this. Doing this will help you stay focused on your big priorities.
   
7. Plan backward. Plan like you would for a dinner party. Picture your house cleaned, your table set, and your meal prepared. Then figure out what you need to do to get your house cleaned, your table ready, and your meal prepared. In other words, picture the goal accomplished, and then plan backward. Say to yourself, “Just before I achieve my goal, I need to ____. And just before I do that, I need to ____. And just before I do that, I need to ____....” Planning backward takes discipline, but it results in a streamlined plan of action.
   
8. Get organized. Schedule time each week to review your goals, empty your inbox, and plan out the coming week. Discipline yourself to do this for a minimum of 30 minutes each week.
   
9. Get resources. Discipline yourself to secure the resources you need to achieve your goals before you start working on your goals.
   
10. Get support, encouragement, and accountability. Discipline yourself to get these on a weekly basis, for example, by getting a coach.

Now, take action to increase your self-management:

1. Choose 1 of the 10 items mentioned above. Design a SMART action plan that will help you increase your self-management: By ____________ (date), I will _______________________________.
   
2. Make a commitment to achieve this action plan, and tell someone about your commitment.
   
3. Achieve your action plan.

Remember, it’s self-management, not time management. Work smart. Today.