Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season, And a time for every matter under heaven…”

Benjamin Franklin: “Dost thou love life? Then waste not time; for time is the stuff that life is made of.”

Will Rogers: “Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”

Doug Larson: “For disappearing acts, it’s hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.”

Astrid Alauda: “Time is the only thief we can’t get justice against.”

Ambrose Bierce: “Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.”

Have a favorite quote? Share it in the comments.

Job descriptions should be simple, no more than a page in length, and should define:

• Job title
• Description or summary of the job
• Skill or physical requirements
• The number of weeks per month the team member is required to serve
• How many hours are required per week or month
• The duration of service (often no more than 3-6 months)

This description helps ensure that a volunteer understands what expectations you have for them. It’s also useful for matching candidates to job openings within your ministry.

A word of warning about job descriptions: you should ensure that volunteers understand that job descriptions outline what you expect from them, but it doesn’t restrict what they can do. If they see something that needs fixed, they should be encouraged to take the steps to fix it. Otherwise, your volunteers will start to adopt the “that’s not my job” attitude.

By setting expectations, you are creating a contract between you and your volunteer. Consider:

• “John, could you find out what it will take to go to HD video?” vs. “John, I would like a list of equipment, tasks, and pricing estimates for coverting our video capture and overhead system to HD throughout our building. How long do you think that will take for you to do the research?”
• “Linda, could you make sure we have coffee setup for our guests every week?” vs. “Linda, we want our guests to have access to 3 different types of coffee: light, medium, and dark. Let’s also provide a decaf coffee for those that want it. I’d like to be sure that all types are available before and after service. Can you tell me what it will take to ensure we have a supplier, people to cover the area, and equipment?”
• “David, would you make us a new logo for our church?” vs. “David, we need a logo for our church. We want something that uses colors from this palette, is in a format that can be used for large signs and t-shirt logos. Could you put 3-5 ideas to us and we’ll select one that best fits our needs? We have a budget of $500 to get the initial work done.”

What a difference! The first set is probably what you get from someone in the hallway as they are rushing to deal with a problem. The second is from someone who thought about what was important and set those expectations with the volunteer.

Before asking a volunteer to spend their valuable time, consider the expectations you are going to give them (or not give them). Are you helping them to spend their time wisely and succeed, or just waste time?

Many leaders don’t think about what kind of time they are taking away from volunteers when they call a meeting. This is especially the case for church staff, as they often work a considerable amount of hours per week. This means that their perception of time is skewed, since they are already working and mentally focused on the needs of the church. For volunteers, it often requires traveling to the church building or a nearby meeting place, shifting mental focus from work and family to church needs, and sacrificing time from family.

The next time you want to call a meeting of your volunteers, take these three questions into consideration:

1. Do I have information that I need to share?
2. Is there an open discussion that we need to have?
3. Is there a decision that we need to make together?

Before you call a meeting, be sure it is important enough to your volunteers. Otherwise, you’ll waste their time, your time, and ruin your credibility when you have something important to share with your team.

I think we sometimes forget how valuable time can be. And how little of it we have.

Time is an equalizer – we all have the same amount of it per day. But, it is also a limited resource. We can’t make more of it. We can’t purchase a “time stretcher” from our local hardware store.

Before you go and ask someone for their time, ask yourself if what you are asking them to do is valuable enough to spend their limited resource on. You may be surprised at how much you and your team do in a week that is really just a waste of time.

Seek God daily

If you don’t spend time reading the Bible, praying, and listening to God’s direction for your day, the rest will fail. God has been directing me daily for years on the big picture things. When I get those done, I know I’ve obeyed Him and honored Him. The rest is all extras.

Find your hotspot times

What are the blocks of time during the day that you are most productive? I am best in the early AM and just before dinner, so I schedule my most important work then and let the rest fill in the gaps

Reduce your email, texting, and phone time

Limit yourself to specific times during the day to check email. This may require some communication with those that expect immediate repllies, but in the end you will be must happier and more productive (see the next point for why this works)

Work in blocks of time

Computers are great at multitasking, humans are terrible at it. No matter how good you think you are at doing multiple things at once, you aren’t as good as when you focus time on one thing. I work on one thing at a time, turning my phone off, closing my email client, and shut down Twitter and IM services. This provides me with the time needed to focus my mind, think about what I need to do, determine the best course of action, do it, and finalize the details so nothing is left for the task. Give yourself blocks of time to work.

Give yourself time to think

The time just before New Year’s Day is often a time of reflection. But what about time each week to reflect on what you did (and didn’t do)? Give yourself time to think about daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly strategy. This means managing your time more effectively so that you can take the appropriate time off every day, week, month, quarter, and year.

I hope these tips help you have a more productive year for your ministry!

Have a tip of your own? Share it with us in the comments!

we send and receive text messages all the time?

we have the TV turned on and making noise all the time?

we check our email every 5 minutes, from the time we wake up until time for bed?

Instead…

Turn off your phone.

Turn off your TV.

Close down your email.

Listen to God. He has something to say to you.

Where did I go wrong? Looking back on it, I realized a few principles that I’ve known but got to busy to remember:

1. Just because more work becomes available doesn’t mean I should take it. This means being willing to turn down opportunities that come my way to make more income for my family if it means sacrificing more time away from them.
2. Working long days in an effort to build up free time later never works. You must pay for it somewhere, so if you start to sprint you’ll be winded once the project is done.
3. Often, the opportunities you are working hard on are not the ones that God would prefer us to focus our energy. This means we must be willing to pace ourselves to stay fresh for when the amazing opportunities arrive

May these lessons from a relapsed workaholic will help you manage your time better.