Practicing Peace

If you know me, you know I love David Allen.  His book Getting Things Done revolutionized the way I work.  I went from being the flighty pastor who over-promised and under-delivered to someone who is known for being “organized.”  This personal transformation convinced me that organization is not innate, but a skill.  If anything, David Allen taught me this one thing:

It’s all in your head.

I had organization confused with organization technology.  I thought if I would just use my paper calendar or my Palm Pilot, then I would be organized.

I was wrong.   It was all in my head.

But, it wasn’t about keeping things in my head.  Organization isn’t remembering a lot of things.  All it is is remembering to do five things over and over again:

• Collect – get everything out of your head.
• Process – decide what to do with everything, and if takes less than two minutes, do it.
• Organize – if it takes more than two minutes, put it in a trustworthy place where you can find it later, like a calendar and/or to-do list.
• Review – look over your calendar and to-do list so you know what’s there.
• Do – do the thing that’s best for you to do given your context, time, energy, and priorities.

These things have to happen in your head (whether you’re aware of it or not) before any organizational system or technology will work for you.  One of the values of an organizational system like the Five Steps to a Peaceful Ministry Day is that it fleshes out the steps REVIEW and DO for ministers.  It is an implementation of something that happens between your ears.

So stop buying Palm Pilots or iPhones to get organized.  Remember: it’s all in your head.

On Mondays from time to time, I’m going to post links to helpful internet articles.  For the first, check out this piece by Tish Harrison Warren called “Keeping Sabbath.”  It’s a wonderful and whimsical reminder of God’s gracious command to rest.

Tish is a colleague of mine from InterVarsity.

We’ve had a bit of a hiatus here at Practicing Peace due to my wife Monique’s and my recent move to Toronto.  Now that classes are starting soon, I should have the space to begin posting again.  Please let me know what topics you would like me to cover.

In “The Five Steps to a Peaceful Ministry Day,” I outlined a five-step thought habit that will help you figure out in what order you should tackle the mountain of responsibilities you have.  Scheduling rest, driving, maintenance, due work, and important things, in that order, will make sure that you have your bases covered while still giving you time to pursue new ministry initiatives.  It really is possible to be a pastor who is known for keeping their promises.

Today, we’re talking about the stuff you’ll need.

1)      An inbox – this needs to be a box or tray that is easily reached on your desk.  This is for everything physical in your office that requires a decision from you.  If it’s “stuff,” it goes here.

2)      A collection device – whether it’s a notebook, a flip pad, or just a bunch of loose sheets of paper, you need to keep something with you to collect your thoughts as you have them.  I’m currently using a spiral bound journalist pad.  It lives in my pocket.  I jot down one idea per page, and then tear the pages out and put them in my inbox.  That way, I know it’s somewhere I won’t forget.

3)      A calendar – it doesn’t matter what kind of calendar.  The only requirement is that it has space in which to write a goodly number of items per day.  Put to-do items like regular maintenance and due work on each day (e.g., as “All-Day” appointments in MS Outlook”) and then schedule them out as we’ve discussed already.

4)      A to-do list – This is a list for important things.  Remember that important things are things that need to be done, but do not have a day or time attached to them.

Those are the basic items you need to manage your workflow.  We’ll be talking more about how to use them soon.