Resources for “Taking Control of Your Time”
Bardford Agry’s article in the November 2 issue of Alban Weekly (“Taking Control of Your Time“) notes that many of us are reactive time managers. We respond to the so-called “emergencies” in our life and workâsome of which are more apparent than real. And we fail to examine and plan, strategically, for the important and longer-term projects.
Agry suggests that we begin to change our habits by (1) making appointments with ourselves to work on the non-urgent (but important) priorities; (2) breaking longer-term projects down into shorter, more approachable “chunks”; (3) mapping our priorities onto weekly and daily plans; and (4) tracking how we are spending our time for a week to see how well (or how poorly) we are serving our goals.
Ultimately, better time management will help to free us from what Agry calls the “tyranny of busy-ness” and enable us to savor the sacred moments in our lives, our relationships, and our devotions.
What resources can help you move toward better time management? In addition to the outstanding books listed at the end of the article, Congregational Resource Guide staff urge you to consider a practical item: David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. And we urge you to consider a thoughtful reflection on the sacred dimension of time: Dorothy Bass’s Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time.
What are your stories and thoughts on managing time. And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you!
Time management advice abounds. What would be new to me, and welcome, would be an article focusing on the integration of my priorities with a sense of God’s priorities for my life and the life of my congregation, or on the use of prayer in scheduling a day or project. Maybe that’s what Dorothy Bass’s book addresses, and I hope I might find time to look at it.
I find that much of my time management struggle comes from failing to observe any form of rhythm. God built natural rhythms to the day and seasons, but I tend toward a rhythm of go, go, go, which is not a rhythm at all. Keeping a sabbath is perhaps one of the most fundamental pieces that I find I have to have in place in order to have good time management. A Sabbath is what keeps me reexamining the big picture.
Along those same lines I find it necessary to intentionally sow margins into my day and week. I tend to want to live in “idealized” time. What I mean by that is that I figure out how much time something can be completed in, in an ideal world and then set that as my intention. The problem with this approach is that the world seldom cooperates ideally. I am learning to leave a significant margin of error around the time I allot for tasks and within my day. Allowing margin greatly limits my stress, missed deadlines and/or poorly completed projects.
All of this though I find only works if it is predicated by a clear sense of purpose. If you don’t know what you want, there are plenty of things that will fill the void of purpose. The result is busy for the sake of being busy.
I find most of these articles to be very useful as vestry learning pieces. We use one to begin each monthly meeting with comments and discussion for 15-20 minutes. Each time I hear comments about how helpful the material has been to inform/inspire the person or vestry as a whole.
Thanks for recommending Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time by Dorothy C. Bass. I needed the reminder today after working endlessly on a newsletter. At least it felt endless. An interruption from a church member was divinely sent as we each reminded the other that only God is perfect and we could move on.