Managing Multiple Priorities

Last week the staff and I attended a seminar to help us deal with organization and managing multiple priorities. I have to admit, that I went with pretty low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised. Here are five lessons that I brought home and hope to incorporate into my life.

1) I need to close my office door at certain times of the day, so that I can find un-interrupted time to get priorities done. Those priorities being, sermon writing, preparation for Bible Study/WWE, writing for newsletter, bulletins, etc.

My weekly schedule will be as follows (of course always subject to emergencies à which often consume my life!), I no doubt will make some modifications as I try to make this work. I will not answer the phone, check emails, etc, during my door closed times.

Sunday: 7:00 – 12:30 Worship
3:30 – 5:30 Holy Adventure Study
Monday: Day Off
Tuesday: 9:30 – 11:00 am Staff Meeting
2:00 – 4:00 Sermon Prep (Door Closed)
Wednesday: My Hospital Day
7:30 – 8:00 Prayer Partner
9:30 – 11:30 Prep Time (Door Closed)
5:30 pm – 8:30 WWE
Thursday: 7:00 – 8:00 Bible Study
8:30 – 11:00 Every other Thursday LARRI Steering Committee
4:30 – 6:00 pm 9:45 Worship Planning
Friday: My Hospital Day
7:00 – Noon Sermon Prep (Door Closed)
Saturday: Day Off (Hospitals for emergencies)

2) I need to remove from my life some of the extraneous stuff that I let steal my time. Better use of delegation, remove some of the clutter that takes up so much of my time, etc.

3) Multi-tasking is a oxymoron
Sure I can do more than one thing at a time, but I can’t do either of them very well (hence the need to have “closed door time”)

4) I need to re-read Stephen Covey’s book: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

5) There are lots of great resources out there to help me do my tasks better. We don’t use our software very well, so we are going to get trained in how to use it better.

Web resources that you might find helpful
1. Gethuman.com
Has a list of phone codes so that you can get off of the annoying automated answering services and actually get a human being.
2. 1-800-4664-411 (1-800-goog-411)
Free 411 service that will actually dial the call (for free as well)
3. Cozi.com
Family calendar program so that the whole families calendars can be coordinated