How to manage your schedule and not go insane

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:08

Hey, welcome everyone. This is unfiltered. My name is Lee Stevenson.

I get to serve Converge overseeing church planting and we're also in the trenches of church planting ourselves.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:19

My name is Danny Parmalee and I oversee church planting in Converge Mid America.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:23

And we're excited to have just real raw conversations about church planting today on our episode we're going to take some time, just talk about time management, I think is a critical conversation for any church planter as they're in the pre launch phase to even that first two years of planting a church because you do feel like you're being pulled from every single direction and there's always more work that needs to be done than what we have time in the day to actually accomplish. And so what are some tips? What are some things that you've learned even the hard way, Danny, over your years of ministry and church planning?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:00

Well, one of them you already said and that is just the realization you will never get it all done.

And I think that there were times where I'm like, well, if I just work a little bit harder today or a little bit harder this week, the list will get done and then I'm going to enter into the season of rest and stability. And it doesn't. As soon as you accomplish something, the more you accomplish, the bigger your plate is going to get.

So just kind of coming with that realization that it's going to be okay to set some boundaries and to be able to say stop, enough is enough type of thing.

So one of the things that I'll say is prior to church planning specific is the choice in the beginning whether to office out of your home or to rent space. I ended up office ing out of home and again partly that was just financially. We didn't have money to.

But it does create a kind of crazy dynamic because there's not a clear stop and start and so it's easier to continue to just keep on working. And your office is there, your laptop is open, you know, wife or if you have kids during that time, everything's just kind of blurred together.

And you think it makes an integrated life, but it actually doesn't. It just is craziness.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:17

Yeah, it makes it more complex. Honestly. No, I think that's a great tip.

If you can try to office as best you possibly can out of the house, it does help differentiate a level of what's work, what's family and able to separate those two.

We actually rented a two bedroom apartment, you know, before we launched the church where it just gave me the ability to go and, and have a place where I went and worked and was able to leave work at work. Now there's an element where you can't fully do that.

But my, my, one of my suggestions, I want to tell people is until you figure this out, you'll never actually be able to grow a staff team in your leadership of the church because working harder becomes your capstone, that becomes your growth lid as a leader. And the reality is you can never work hard enough to accomplish all the tasks that need to be accomplished.

And so you've got to learn how to work smarter. And the quicker and the faster that you learn how to do that.

And what I mean by work smarter is sometimes you realize 80% of the way that I would do it is good enough. And so how can I get people or others engaged along this pathway and get them to do 80% of maybe the way I would do it is very helpful.

And you've got to focus your time and your energy about maybe the 20% that only you can do. And I try to.

One of the lists that I do, I even visit it now probably twice a year as I kind of just go through my life and I go, what right now do I need to just dump? Like, what do I need to get off my plate?

Because it is just is bogging me down and it's not helping anybody out, it's not helping our ministry, it's not helping my family, it's not helping me. So what are the things I need to dump? Number two is I asked the question, what do I need to defer?

What are the things that, you know, if I put this off for three months, it's not going to hurt us or six months, and it doesn't need to be accomplished today. And so I make a list of the different things I need to defer. Number three is what are the things I need to delegate?

You know, there's always things that you're doing that probably somebody else is more than capable of doing. And honestly, they can probably actually do it better than the way that you currently do it. And so think through that. Make a list.

Who can I delegate this to?

I can even remember there were seasons, even with my staff team, I had to come to them and show them, hey, this is why I'm doing boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I don't want to do these three anymore. So you've now got to figure out how to accomplish these three things, because I'm done doing it.

Danny Parmelee: 00:04:53

And many people, they actually want to. So it's not even just that you're delegating some bad task, that other people are empowered and it actually brings them life and brings you life.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:04

Exactly, exactly. And then the fourth question I ask myself is, what are the things that only I can do in our organization? And I try to make that list.

And then lastly is I asked myself, if I were able to give myself double effort in these specific areas, we would see double the results. And those five questions really help clarify for me how are my rhythms? How's my time management? Are there things that I'm doing I shouldn't be doing?

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:32

Yeah, that's awesome. Very, very cool. Right now I'm actually just getting done reading a book called Peak Performance. And it's total, you know, secular book.

But in there that's allowed? Yes, it is allowed. Learn a lot of stuff there.

And it is interesting because their whole premise is really a biblical principle, which is rhythms of stress and rest. And that that is really what brings people to their peak performance.

And so, and we may have talked about this already, I can't remember if we, we did or not, but just the importance of knowing what some of those rhythms of stress and rest are on large scale, even, you know, taking this amount of vacation per year, but definitely down to the biblical sense of making sure that you really prioritize that Sabbath and family time. And it's easy to say, oh well, you know, God just needs me to work so hard and to do all this stuff for the church plan, so I'm going to.

And people will praise you for it because you're praised for working harder for the church and you're sacrific. But we actually accomplish less. So if you really do understand that you will see this happen. You accomplish less if you don't take that proper rest.

So it's not only just a biblical obedience thing, it's pragmatic too, to be able to do that. And then learning some of those different boundaries are just really important for time management. What were some of the boundaries?

I don't know if you had any specific boundaries that kind of helped you.

Lee Stephenson: 00:07:07

A couple things. I mean it was literally writing the schedule down in the calendar all the time. And I always put family priorities first.

So when our family vacations, birthdays, different things like that that I just knew were non negotiable. And so I didn't schedule things during those time periods. Friday was always my Sabbath.

And the reason why I chose Friday was I know a lot of pastors take Monday off because you're shot and you're exhausted. I didn't want to lose my day off when I was tired. And so I was like, there are certain things that I can do even when I'm tired.

And so those were the things I did on Mondays. And so Friday I actually had pretty good energy on that day off. And so that was a day off.

Little things like 4:30 in the afternoon was exercise period. Like, I. I made sure that I always got my exercise time in between 4 and 4:30. I go out and ride my bike and do different things like that.

And that helped keep me healthy. It helped me get through emotions I needed to deal with before I walked in the house. And then it was little things like.

And I had learned this the hard way.

My wife confronted me on the fact that I was walking in the house every evening on the phone and my kids would run up to me and want to give me a hug and I was distracted from them. And she said, do you realize what's going on? I said, I am so sorry. I never even realized that.

And so I got into the habit of if I was on the phone in a conversation and the conversation wasn't over when I got in the driveway, I didn't get out of the vehicle until the conversation was over. And when that conversation was over, I walked in the house, gave my wife a kiss, hugged the kids, and I put my phone in a drawer.

So that way it wasn't this constant distraction for me.

Danny Parmelee: 00:08:53

That's good. I take. Took Mondays off. Mondays are the proper day for all you listeners out there. That's the holy Sabbath day. Monday.

Most pastors, it's either Friday or Monday and alternating reasons I think for me as well too is that I chose to not have night meetings or night appointments other than the ones that were scheduled in advance on the calendar, which were, you know, they weren't very often. So it'd be like, okay, well, this is the only time that we can get together as the overseers or elders of the church or a certain meeting.

And so it was just expected that I would be home and that I would be home for dinner. And if there were special circumstances, I would always clear that.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:38

That's good.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:39

With, with Emily first to be able to. And, and honestly, that was a help to me. So I would never be like, well, I. I want to meet, but my family needs me home.

It was just so nice to be able to say, no, this is, this is the way that I just operate and, and run things.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:55

Yeah. Similarly, I, I got to the point where I only did One breakfast meeting a week.

There was only one day of the week that I would do a meeting before 8:30. And there was two reasons for that. One, I wanted to connect with my kids before they went off to school.

The second reason was my brain is the sharpest in the morning. I'm just a morning person. And so I didn't want to get into those periods when I was sharp, where I needed to problem solve.

I wanted to spend time with the Lord when my brain was the freshest. And so in order to keep that, I had to discipline myself to say only one morning meeting a week and that was it.

Danny Parmelee: 00:10:36

Yeah, that's great. Any other tips or tricks that you've heard of people in general, as far as time management?

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:46

Pay attention to your calendar. Calendar. The things that are the most priority, you know, the highest priority early on, put your every year, a year in advance.

Put your vacation times down on the calendar.

I would encourage you after year one because the first year you just gotta be there, you gotta be at the helm, you know, preaching, preaching, preaching and stuff like that. But after year one, make sure you at least take a two week vacation every year. So that way you get two Sundays off in a row.

I think that really keeps you fresh and gives you enough downtime to truly relax.

I would encourage you to do a study break once a year where you take a week away and you just kind of focus in on the year, the church, your preaching schedule, those type of things and just plan, maximize that time.

Now it's not a I'm just going to sit at the beach like it's work, but you're in a different environment, so your brain thinks a little differently because of that. And you don't answer a bunch of phone calls, don't answer a bunch of emails. Time between you and the Lord.

And to really help you gain focus and clarity on what God is doing in the life of your church.

The other thing I would encourage you, and this is a habit I have to watch and I think it's actually fairly prevalent in a lot of church planters, is you got to be careful how much you do on adrenaline. Adrenaline is something that if you take it continuously, you actually run out and you can get what's called adrenal fatigue.

And you've got to be careful of constantly running your life on adrenaline. It's part of our wiring, being a entrepreneur that you just, I can keep going, I keep going, I keep going.

And then you're drinking more and more and more caffeine.

Those things take a toll on your body and it will catch up and so get into healthy rhythms as quickly as you possibly can so that you're paying attention to how much adrenaline am I actually using on a daily basis. A great book to read to help you in that is Leaving on Empty by Wayne Cordero.

That book really impacted me because I realized I've got a lot of the same tendencies and I don't want to get to the place that he was. He's very open, very honest in that book.

Another book that's helpful is Bruce Miller's book youk Church in Rhythm and just talks about how to manage the tension and your time well with all the demands that you have in your personal life and your ministry life. And a very, very helpful book.

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:21

Cool.

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:21

How about for you?

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:22

Yeah, I mean, I think the ones I said before, I'm kind of naturally kind of a scattered person and have maybe even prided myself earlier on as being like a multitasker and realizing really the fallacy of multitasking. And so I think of learning to batch different things.

And again, I know we've said the word rhythm and maybe it's kind of a buzzword, but it is true that if you can start to know, okay, well, these are the days I'm going to dedicate towards preach are the days I'm going to batch my appointments of meeting with people.

It helped to kind of keep my mind in one thing instead of just the tyranny of the urgent and constantly answering every email, phone call, request, putting out every little fire and choosing some of those things that you just have to let go. And this is what's on the plate today. And of course you build in some margin for some of that unexpected stuff.

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:19

But that's how I.

Yeah, I think great perspective there and I love your perspective on the tyranny of the urgent because I think that's an easy thing trap that pastors can fall into.

And I just want to encourage our pastors out there that you need to remind yourself just because it's an emergency in somebody else's life doesn't necessarily mean it's your emergency. And don't neglect the things that are most important. Your own personal walk with the Lord, your time with your spouse and the time with your kids.

Don't neglect those things. You don't want to pay that price.

Danny Parmelee: 00:14:52

Yep.

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:53

So thanks again so much for being with us. This is unfiltered and hope you enjoyed the real and raw conversations about time management again. Till next time, keep it real.

Danny Parmelee: 00:15:15

La.