Have you admired someone from afar and wondered how that person can accomplish more in a day than you have completed in a week? If you have felt that way, you are not alone. A person who succeeds in winning the day is a person who does not allow the day to manage them. Instead, they structure an environment that allows success to happen by often doing the work early.
God has placed enormous dreams in my heart, both personal and professional. To accomplish all that God has called me to do, I have had to develop structure around my time. Sometimes ministry and family responsibilities beyond my control overtake my day, but on most days I have gained ground by following three simple steps to ministry success.
Seeding the future.
We all have dreams and hope for the future, but many do not do the work to see the future come to pass. If you want to reach your goals, you have to work your way back from the end goal to achieve your dream. Think about it as you are seeding your future with future results by doing the work today for the reward tomorrow. When I am trying to achieve a goal, let’s say it’s publishing a book, I set aside time to write. That means waking up two and half hours earlier than my family so I can write undisturbed. Finding time in the downtime of the day to switch off the TV or social media and write ideas down in a notebook. You can substitute writing a book with your dream, and the principle still fits.
Many leaders have looked back on their lives and regret the missed opportunity to achieve all God had for them. I do not want to be one of those leaders. How about you? Think about your most prominent dream. What is it that God has placed in your heart? What can you do today to take a step in the direction to achieve it? What do you have to give up today to gain your dream tomorrow? Seeding your future is about working in God’s timing and doing your part to attain the God size dream inside of you.
Divide and conquer.
The most successful people I know are the ones who divide up their day into small bite-size blocks of time to achieve maximum effectiveness. Managing your ministry life in blocks of time can help you focus, strategize, dream, plan and implement for the future. Sectioning off time in 15- or 30-minute blocks enables you to focus on the task at hand like a laser beam. Block management helps lessen distractions, develops greater time management skills and accomplishes goals that will get you one step closer to your desired outcome.
Recently my youth pastor invited a colleague from a more significant church to visit our campus. I asked to have 30 minutes with the guests, as I saw value in learning, listening and leaning into ways to accomplish kingdom building on a grander scale here at my local church. That one 30-minute block of time enabled me to focus on critical elements of what we do well and how the church can improve. By dividing your day into small blocks, you will conquer your dreams and see them come to reality block by block.
Dread to Bed
We all have that one task we do not like to do. The task will force you to procrastinate or even ignore it, hoping it will go away on its own. But that is not reality. If you want to succeed and achieve your dreams, you have to tackle the challenging task first. Do the job you do not want to do first and put it to bed so you can do the things you desire to accomplish. It takes a shift in your mindset and spirit to achieve this step. For each of us, that dreaded task will be different, but for all of us, the dreaded task will be the least favorite thing to accomplish but can be foundational in our spiritual development. If you are a morning person or a night owl, do that dreaded task when you are at your best, and put it to bed to enjoy, even when tired, the thing you love to do.
If you can adapt your current style of ministry to fit the God-size dream inside of you, you will look back at how much you have been able to accomplish in a month or year from now. Be outcome-focused by refocusing your priorities on your dreams as you seed the future, divide and conquer, and move your dreaded projects to bed so you can do the things that bring you joy in ministry.