One of the challenges that pastors are facing right now is how to decide what tasks to do and when, especially since the sheer number of them (partly a holdover from Covid times, partly the generalist nature of ministry) feels so daunting.

Recently one of my coachees introduced me to the Eisenhower Matrix. It was developed by President Dwight Eisenhower as a prioritization tool. It offers a way to sift responsibilities into quadrants according to importance and urgency, thus making it more useful than a to-do list, which makes it look like all actions have equal weight. Here’s an example:

Note: You don’t have to put steps in the same boxes I did. Importance and urgency will vary by minister and ministry setting.

Once you put your to-dos in the boxes, then you can make an action plan. Take care of the pieces that are both important and urgent. Delegate the urgent but not important ones. Plan for blocks of time to address the important but not urgent. Don’t even bother with steps that are neither urgent nor important.

You could use this matrix daily or weekly to help you figure out what you actually need to get done, not what your straight to-do list or other people say you need to accomplish. If you get stuck at any point in sifting the jobs or implementing the matrix, that’s useful information too.

For some of my coachees the matrix has resulted in some big picture vocational awareness and for others it’s made their roles feel more manageable. So if you are drowning in work, give this tool a try and reflect on what you learn.

I wrote the post below three years ago, with all the blushing innocence that 2017 afforded us. I think, though, that taking the time to shift our foci between tasks is more important now than ever. The pandemic has smushed our work and personal lives into one amorphous mess, compelling us to try to do all the things while feeling like we do none of them justice. But what if we took a deep breath in between answering an email and answering the ten-questions-in-one hurled at us by our child? What if we spent a few moments in centering prayer in between Zoom calls? What if we took a short dance break in between filming worship segments? What if we did a brief body scan at bedtime and stretched out areas of tension so that we could rest better? We still wouldn’t have all the time we needed to complete our to-do lists - that’s simply not possible right now for many of us - but we would be able to show up more grounded for others and be kinder to ourselves. You are worth that, and so are the people you care about at church and at home.

I love my lists and my Google calendar. They make my chaotic life feel manageable(ish). Still, there are times when the to-dos meld into  asinglerunontask and events overlap. That’s when my brain kicks into hyperdrive, my eyes dart around my desk, and my heart picks up the pace. I’m TCBing, with output of questionable quality. I’m everywhere at once, but nowhere fully present. Maybe you can relate.

I confess that I sometimes I sing “I’m Every Woman” to myself with whiff of pride. But it’s not always (often? ever?) good to be every woman at every moment. I don’t want to be mentally running through research while eating dinner with my family. I’m not my best self as a leader if I’m sketching my sermon outline during a committee meeting. It’s hard to give good pastoral care to someone who is grieving when I’m still coming down off a tense conversation with a colleague. Yes, there are times when I have to manage multiple responsibilities, but not as often as I try to.

Hence the need for transitions: into and out of my workday, from one task to another, between conversations that require emotional awareness and sharp mental focus. Anytime a shift in mindset is warranted, I’ve got to take a moment to close one internal file and open the next. This transition allows me to consider how I want to show up for the situation I’m about to enter and to re-center myself so that I can live toward those intentions.

There are any number of ways I make the shift – sometimes more successfully than at other times, I admit. Taking deep breaths to re-set my brain. Jotting down notes about what I’ve been doing so that I can fully set that work aside and come back to it later. Doing a couple of quick yoga poses or pilates exercises. Shutting my eyes for five minutes (making sure to set an alarm!). Queueing up the playlists I’ve created for settling down and amping up. Turning over loose threads to God and asking for awareness and guidance going into whatever is next on the agenda. Taking a lap around the building.

What are the ways you transition from one task or event to the next, or even into and out of your day? Where do you need to build in a couple of minutes on the front and/or back end of your to-dos so that you can fully be you – insightful, compassionate, prophetic, gifted you – as a pastor and a person?

Photo by Suad Kamardeen on Unsplash.

I have had a number of conversations lately with coachees who feel overwhelmed by their workloads. Some have even expressed shame that they can’t seem to get their arms around all they need – or at least think they need – to do.

Here are my responses to that:

You are not alone. Not by a long shot. Most ministers are generalists, which makes your work big and amorphous.

If you feel overwhelmed, it’s because you care. You love your calling and your people. That’s a good thing!

It is ok to reclaim your time. There are some things that only you can do or that you are specifically called to do. You are allowed to prioritize those tasks.

There are strategies that can help you toward that end. Some of the following suggestions will work better than others for you based on your work style and personality type, but you might consider:

Developing a work flow. Think about tasks that recur weekly or monthly and schedule standing blocks of time for them. These don’t have to be big chunks, but blocking time creates touchstones that reduce anxiety and the number of decisions you have to make in a day.

Postponing and/or limiting time spent on email. If you open your email as soon as you sit down at your desk, you have ceded control of your day to whatever awaits you in those messages. Get some of your important tasks done before you check your inbox. A related strategy is to dg into email only at a couple of designated times each day. (Rest assured that real emergencies will get through to you by other means.)

Thinking in longer arcs. Take time at the beginning of each month or season to set goals, plan sermon trajectories, or create outlines for Bible studies. That will offer continuity to your work and make sure your best ideas don’t get shelved.

Breaking big projects into smaller tasks. Projects on the whole can feel too overwhelming to start, but they are made up of mini projects and shorter deadlines that are much more manageable.

Working somewhere else when needed. It’s ok to set up shop from time to time somewhere that you won’t be interrupted every five minutes. Let your admin or lay leaders know where you are for accountability and how your deep work during these windows benefits the church.

Getting curious. Ask yourself questions such as, “Why am I doing this?” or “Who could do this better or with more enthusiasm than me?”

Empowering others. Ministry is about equipping people to follow Jesus. What opportunities to use God-given strengths and to share the love of Christ can others take on and free you up for other responsibilities in the process?

Loving the people in your care is not the same as responding to their every expectation, real or imagined. I encourage you to be proactive about your use of time and to notice how your ministry and your stress level change as a result.

In the field of positive psychology, focus is placed not on the diagnosis and treatment of maladies but on creating the conditions for human flourishing. A key aspect of thriving is engagement, when we are so into what we are doing that everything else fades into the background while we are doing it. The flow model developed by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi says that for a person to be deeply engaged in an activity, her skill level must be in relative balance with the challenge of the task. If her skill availability is high while the difficulty of the task is low, she will quickly get bored. If the challenge outweighs her talents, her anxiety ratchets up.

What does the flow model reveal to you about your work? Specifically:

When are you deeply engaged in ministry? At these moments you are most likely living into your God-given calling.

When are you bored? Though you might have developed some reliable skills to carry out these less scintillating tasks, you are not building on your innate strengths.

When are you anxious? There is such a thing as a healthy stretch, which is a challenge that fosters our personal or professional growth. When we are overextended, however, we can start to believe that we are frauds and worry that we will fail those who rely on us.

Take a look at your responses to the above questions. What are the percentages of time spent on engaging, boring, and anxiety-producing tasks? Everyone has some tasks that fall into the latter two categories – that’s part of work life (and adulting in general, for that matter). But if those aspects are disproportionately large, it’s time to look at ways to revamp your job description. What dull or stressful assignments can be eliminated or shrunk if they’re less essential or redistributed to others who can do them better and with more enthusiasm if they are truly important? Your personnel committee or pastoral relations committee might be able to help you assess this.

If there’s not much that can be changed, then it’s time to consider whether your position is still a good fit for you. If not, what might a great fit look like? Your gifts are too valuable not to be fully engaged.

I have army-crawled toward vacation many times, so mentally and physically depleted that I wasn’t sure I’d cross the threshold before I collapsed from exhaustion. Those were hard starts to time away. They involved at least a couple of days to decompress and to get some semblance of energy back before I could really enjoy my respite. Then there was the anticipatory grief of re-entering “real life,” which cut short my fun on the back end and made me already start pining for my next vacation. This pattern held whether I was in a call I loved or one that made me want to hide under the covers.

Our beach trip three weeks ago was different. Beforehand, I had picked up several new coaching clients that I was eager to get started with. I had some projects I was looking forward to. I was feeling creative in my writing and planning. I was far from depleted. Still, I was glad to listen to crashing waves and spend concentrated time with my family. And I was ready to come back to work afterward.

This easy entry to and exit from time off is what I hope for you so that you can truly enjoy your hard-earned breaks, whether you have a grand adventure planned or intend to hole up at home with a stack of novels. Here are some coaching questions to help you work toward this reality:

• What must be taken care of before your mind can let go of work?

• Which of these tasks belong only to you, and which can others take on?

• How far out from vacation do you need to start tackling your list to give yourself enough time, pacing yourself so that you don’t start your time off in recovery mode?

• How will you give yourself grace if all the to-dos aren’t completed before your break?

• How might you ritualize closing up shop so that your heart and mind grasp that you are on respite?

• How will you acknowledge and then let go of work concerns as they (naturally) come to mind during your time away?

• How can you celebrate the end of your vacation and reorient toward work so that you are ready to get back to it?

• What will help you remember that you don’t have to do all the things on the first day you return to the office?

May your vacations be restful and rejuvenating. The church and world need you – particularly in this cultural and political moment – to be at your best.

I am someone who dreams pretty intensely. Maybe it’s because I have a hard time turning off my mind at night. Or it could be that the podcast I have to listen to in order to quiet my brain plants wild notions in my head. Neither explanation accounts for a very detailed conversation I had last night with Nick Saban, who sought out my advice because his board chair was unwilling or unable to innovate. Luckily for Saban, my freshman roommate wandered by, and a couple of Tennessee grads tag-teamed a leadership strategy for the most powerful man in college football. (See what I mean? Vivid. And weird.)

Occasionally, though, I dream the seed of an actionable idea. Such was the case recently when I sleep-designed a resource for ministers. This weekly calendar with reflection prompts is aimed at bringing more intentionality to our lives. Each day has morning and evening coaching questions. In between, the days are divided into three blocks of time. Those blocks can be used to list appointments, to divvy up tasks, or to designate work and leisure time. (In the units of time approach, every day has three units: morning, afternoon, and evening. Full-time work is 10-12 units per week. Subscribers to this method usually recommend booking no more than 2-3 evening work commitments and taking 3-6 blocks off in a row for full rejuvenation per week.)

Below you will find a JPEG of this weekly calendar. Here is an 8.5 x 11″ grayscale PDF. I welcome you to download, print, use this resource. You are also encouraged to share it with others who might benefit.

Do you ever feel like you can’t get around to the meat of ministry because you’re chained to email, constantly interrupted when trying to write or plan, or unable to get momentum on more mentally-intense projects due to the way your schedule is broken up by meetings?

You’re not alone. Most professionals struggle with distraction, making it harder for them to tap into the fullness of their gifts and to spend as much time as they’d like on the tasks they consider most important.

In Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, computer science professor Cal Newport lays out his case for making time for uninterrupted work that pushes professionals to their cognitive limits and offers strategies for creating that space.

Newport’s suggestions have to be adjusted for ministry, because sometimes “interruptions” such as pastoral care crises turn out to be exactly what we need to focus on. But setting up a schedule and conditions for deep work will allow us to prepare sermons we feel good about with less strain, plan further out for liturgical seasons, create curricula trajectories and content, and flesh out new ministries. Without this intentionality, we’ll fill up our time with activities that are easy to cross off the to-do list and remain frustrated about all the “real” ministry we don’t have time to tackle.

Here are some approaches that might be worth mulling:

Build in and protect blocks of deep work. Set aside 1.5-4 hour blocks for bursts of undistracted work. Settle into a location that promotes good focus. Turn off your internet connection. (If you need it for your work, ensure that email and social media are off limits.) Ask your admin to come in – or allow others in – only if there is a pastoral emergency. (Be sure to clarify what constitutes an emergency, and tell your admin how this deep work enables you to minister better so that your admin can then repeat this explanation to others.)

Make a work flow. Plan for your day, assigning all of your deep and shallow work to time slots. When tasks take longer or shorter than expected or an unexpected ministry need arises, hold your schedule lightly and revise it for the rest of the day. The point is not to be rigid but to be intentional about how your time is spent.

Create start and shutdown rituals. Establish a pattern for entering your focused work time to signal your brain that it’s time to close down all the other tabs. When you are stopping work at the end of each day, go through a routine that tells your body and mind that you are bracketing work until tomorrow. (Your shutdown ritual might include a plan for completing remaining tasks so that you can rest in the confidence that everything will eventually get done.) Then honor the shutdown ritual, knowing that rest will allow you to reset fully.

Retreat for intensive planning periods. A couple of hours each day might not be enough to do medium- to long-range planning. Allow yourself to spend entire days (or multiple days) offsite for this work. Let others in your church know what you are doing and why, and be prepared to show your work. If you really want to settle in for deep focus, use study leave time and/or find pastoral care coverage.

Deep work allows us to give more fully into our calls. It also helps us remember what is important as opposed to what is urgent, and it reminds us that there are very few interruptions that cannot wait a couple of hours for our attention.

How do you build in deep work? Which of the suggestions above might you try?

I remember camping out in my parents’ bathroom the night before I took the SAT for the last time. I had worked myself up so much thinking about how important this standardized test was for my future that I threw up. A lot.

I remember curling up on my dorm bed during my final semester of college. It was late evening, and I was supposed to be studying, but I was so stressed that I had given myself a migraine. The only lights I could tolerate were the strand of Christmas twinkles stretched across my room. The pounding in my head got worse as I thought about how much I wasn’t getting done thanks to this forced break.

I remember turning off the lights in my church office and working in the corner, where no one could see me through the window to the hallway. My ministry environment was toxic, but I still had responsibilities to fulfill. So I tended to them, in the dark and in isolation as often as I could.

I remember hiding and crying in my closet as the brand-new, low-supply mom of a baby who grazed all day. I felt like I had completely disappeared into this new parenting identity, but it felt too much like failure to ask for help.

I share these vignettes to let you know that you are not alone if you struggle with self-care. I have always wrestled with the swirl of responsibilities, expectations, and passions. And almost everyone I have coached has raised the issue of self-care at some point. There are many reasons that the need to create or maintain margins is so difficult. For my coachees and me, it often comes down to some combination of the following:

• Constant accessibility, thanks to technology

• The availability demanded by the pastoral life

• Gender norms that try to push more tasks onto women’s plates

• Assumptions about women that make us feel like we have to work doubly hard to be perceived as competent

• Family realities, such as care for an aging parent or small child(ren)

• A chaotic social and political season that is tugging at us to become more engaged in service and/or activism

• A broad range of interests and/or gifts that makes it hard to know where to specialize

I’m not an expert on self-care (obviously, as the anecdotes above show!). But in making my own changes and in working with coachees, I have developed a framework for designing a self-care strategy. It is built around five Ps:

• Priorities: working out of one’s own sense of purpose and gifts

• Permission: getting blessing from self and others to plan for replenishment

• Planning: naming tangible steps to creating space for self-care

• Parameters: identifying what it is important to (almost) always say yes or no to

• Partners: creating a network of accountability partners, encouragers, and helpers

The framework is bookended by some reflection on what about self-care is important to the individual and what it would look like to be (somewhat) ok leaving some things undone.

Originally taught as a webinar and workshop, this series of reflection points is now available as a workbook. If you’re interested in checking it out, this guide is available for purchase here.

I love my lists and my Google calendar. They make my chaotic life feel manageable(ish). Still, there are times when the to-dos meld into  asinglerunontask and events overlap. That’s when my brain kicks into hyperdrive, my eyes dart around my desk, and my heart picks up the pace. I’m TCBing, with output of questionable quality. I’m everywhere at once, but nowhere fully present. Maybe you can relate.

I confess that I sometimes I sing “I’m Every Woman” to myself with whiff of pride. But it’s not always (often? ever?) good to be every woman at every moment. I don’t want to be mentally running through research while eating dinner with my family. I’m not my best self as a leader if I’m sketching my sermon outline during a committee meeting. It’s hard to give good pastoral care to someone who is grieving when I’m still coming down off a tense conversation with a colleague. Yes, there are times when I have to manage multiple responsibilities, but not as often as I try to.

Hence the need for transitions: into and out of my workday, from one task to another, between conversations that require emotional awareness and sharp mental focus. Anytime a shift in mindset is warranted, I’ve got to take a moment to close one internal file and open the next. This transition allows me to consider how I want to show up for the situation I’m about to enter and to re-center myself so that I can live toward those intentions.

There are any number of ways I make the shift – sometimes more successfully than at other times, I admit. Taking deep breaths to re-set my brain. Jotting down notes about what I’ve been doing so that I can fully set that work aside and come back to it later. Doing a couple of quick yoga poses or pilates exercises. Shutting my eyes for five minutes (making sure to set an alarm!). Queueing up the playlists I’ve created for settling down and amping up. Turning over loose threads to God and asking for awareness and guidance going into whatever is next on the agenda. Taking a lap around the building.

What are the ways you transition from one task or event to the next, or even into and out of your day? Where do you need to build in a couple of minutes on the front and/or back end of your to-dos so that you can fully be you – insightful, compassionate, prophetic, gifted you – as a pastor and a person?

I love lists. I always have. And there are few things that make me as giddy as crossing a task off my to-do list. Ministry, however, rarely lends itself to an agenda made up of bite-sized, easily quantifiable jobs. For us listlovers, then, it can be discouraging to get to the end of the day and see so few strikethroughs. It’s easy to wonder if we did anything worthwhile.

Enter the to-done list. When your day has looked nothing like what you’d planned – such is ministry! – or when intangibles have dominated your focus, cross out some items on this list and know that your day has been well-spent. Feel free to use and share. (Downloadable PDF version here.)

I suffer from the terrible scourge that is perfectionism. Until recently, this affliction meant that I’d still be editing my sermons until I stepped onto the chancel, no matter how long I’d been working on them.

Something has changed over the last couple of years, though. I’ve been able to stick a fork in my manuscripts and enjoy playing or even (gasp) just kicking back in the recliner on Saturdays. Maybe I’ve gained a smidge of insight about my process through experience and the passage of time. Maybe I have a different sense of priorities now that I sit across the breakfast table from 28 pounds of pure curiosity, cuteness, and mischief. Maybe I simply trust the Spirit more than I once did.

I don’t think the quality of my sermons has declined, but even if it has, God can hit the override and still speak through me. So if you are a long-suffering perfectionist preacher, here’s what I recommend:

Get an editor. I’m lucky to have one required by the marriage laws of our state (or something like that) to give feedback on my sermons, but in-town friends and online communities are great resources too.

Make plans for Saturday. This is counter-intuitive for many ministers, but it may provide the inspiration needed to finish writing early and set the manuscript aside.

Learn when to call it. Not every sermon will draw Barbara Brown Taylor comparisons. Know when to say, “I’ve worked hard, I’ve tried to be faithful to the text, and it’s up to the Spirit to do the rest.”

Ask for post-sermon feedback. Approach a cross-section of parishioners for their honest, constructive reactions. Knowing what they heard and where they engaged will help with the next week’s preparation.

Thankfully, while it is essential to approach homiletical work with all due reverence, the Word is proclaimed in so many ways – through music, communion, prayer, the passing of the peace, and so many other experiences of the divine. So preaching is not all about us as ministers, and it is certainly not all done by us!

Have you ever started a day or week with a short to-do list, only to find that you are soon swallowed up by requests and minutiae?

Time abhors a vacuum.

So, what’s a minister to do when so much of her work is about being available to others and taking care of those details that no one else knows about but that make the ministry run smoothly?

Make the calendar your friend. Schedule blocks for sermon prep, curriculum writing, big picture planning, visitation, open office hours, and even self-care (afternoon Dunkin Donuts run, anyone?) just like you do for committee meetings. And just like with committee meetings, you can push your plans aside if a truly pressing pastoral need arises. Otherwise, feel free to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t do such-and-such right now. I have an appointment.” Because you do.

If we don’t block out time for visioning and self-care, those two things are almost always first on the to-do list chopping block. Yet those are perhaps the two most critical pieces of longevity in ministry.

Happy calendaring!