Piles. Stacks. Mess. UGGGHHHH! Are you tripping over clutter, both in your physical space and your digital life? Same.
Until...
Join Chad Higgins and Zac as we take a deep dive into personal organization. This is part 3 of our organized for impact series for youth ministry leaders.
There is power, power, wonder working power of labeling and how designating a space for each item, no matter how small, can rein in the chaos.
*BONUS discover the secret to protecting your personal email from the undesirables.
We discuss the benefits of breaking up your day into manageable chunks and how setting timers can keep you motivated. And if things get too overwhelming, don't worry - we've got strategies for resetting and refocusing your energy. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. This week, take a step towards a more organized life by listening to this episode and make a new friend who shares your goal. You might just be surprised at how much you grow!
Piles. Stacks. Mess. UGGGHHHH! Are you tripping over clutter, both in your physical space and your digital life? Same.
Until...
Join Chad Higgins and Zac as we take a deep dive into personal organization. This is part 3 of our organized for impact series for youth ministry leaders.
There is power, power, wonder working power of labeling and how designating a space for each item, no matter how small, can rein in the chaos.
*BONUS discover the secret to protecting your personal email from the undesirables.
We discuss the benefits of breaking up your day into manageable chunks and how setting timers can keep you motivated. And if things get too overwhelming, don't worry - we've got strategies for resetting and refocusing your energy. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. This week, take a step towards a more organized life by listening to this episode and make a new friend who shares your goal. You might just be surprised at how much you grow!
And we're back with another episode of the Usdyn's your Booster Podcast. Hang out in the garage with my best friend Chad Higgins, I get excited.
Speaker 2:Oh, come on.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I get excited because we had a nice lunch. I'm ready to go. It was very fantastic. Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 2:It was very good, my name is Chad Higgins and I am excited to be here.
Speaker 1:My name is Zach Worker. I'm excited to be here. Did you introduce yourself or did I just jump in this?
Speaker 2:I'll be honest. You brought so much energy at the beginning. It was too much. It was too much, because normally you're like, hey, what's up, what are you doing? I'm Zach hey.
Speaker 1:And so, anyways, you threw me off my game. Let's go, we'll slow it down.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, we're past that point.
Speaker 1:We're moving on. Welcome to another episode of the Usdyn's your Booster Podcast. My name is Zach Worker. Hang in the garage with my best friend, chad Higgins. We did it, we got it. We're there, we're ready. Take two every time.
Speaker 2:If this is their first time watching this Too much, it's too much.
Speaker 1:Welcome, welcome, glad you're here. This episode is actually a part three. We're on the third part of the show Trinity.
Speaker 2:The third one's never good.
Speaker 1:The return of the organization. Yeah, revenge of the organization, return of the organization. This is. If you haven't watched the first two, we'll link them below, but this is at least the third part. Maybe the fourth part We'll see how far we can go. We'll get into our notes today for what youth ministers and youth ministries need to get organized, but before we do that, I want to hear the story that you shared with me about your daughter. We love our kiddos, we talk about them. Malia is your daughter. For first time listeners, y'all are back to school and you're back in a regular rhythm of going to church yeah, after summer, in and out, vacay camps, whatever and Malia had the most delightful story to share.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our church is doing this thing where they like they haven't restarted their like children's church stuff yet We've got a bunch of like college students that come and so like they're starting to back into the school.
Speaker 1:A labor force? Yeah, the labor force yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're like the kids are coming in the main service with their parents and so they have these cool little kids boxes that like kids are able to For Sunday morning worship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really good you can use them to entertain because instead of going off to kids church it's like you'd bring the kids church to the pizza box.
Speaker 2:Sunday school and then they come in with us so well played kids ministry. Yeah, Um. So Malia is between Martha and I.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:She's like knees on the ground, facing the chair, playing with this little box, and a pastor speaking and he makes the phrase here we see Jesus talking about like in the text.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like here we see Jesus doing this, the, the, the Christological lens of the text. Correct, got it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, now, what this man doesn't know is that my daughter, for the last probably half a year, has had this reoccurring question over and over again of why can I not see God, where's he at? Okay, let's call him. Yeah, we talk a lot about God. Why can't I see you calling? Where's he at? So Malia in the middle playing. I don't even think she's listening, right, yeah, but she hears the phrase here we see Jesus. My girl jumps up, whips that head around, not just head she full turns and loud she goes what? And then she turns to me and Martha and she goes Jesus is here, he's here when? Hmm, and and a little bit like why have we been having to listen to this guy, right, if Jesus has been here the whole time? Like I want to see him? Right, so she's like I want to see him, like where's the aunt?
Speaker 1:All this gets the opening act out of here. Yeah, the main event he's getting going.
Speaker 2:And so we. I'll be honest, I just immediately start laughing, Okay.
Speaker 1:Which is exactly what every pastor wants to hear during their sermon, during a non-joke is a belly laugh Right Like yeah, and here we see Jesus.
Speaker 2:But everybody around us starts kind of like giggling as well, because they heard her, yeah, because she's excited, she's like where's Jesus? Let's see him, and so anyway.
Speaker 1:Call him Right In the middle of the sermon I'm having to like.
Speaker 1:He's here Explain to her all of these things, christ in the text, yes, so it's good, that's good. Well, I mean again, that's we are. We're in that phase, third grade, first grader. So some of the things that are like you know, or the stories that we shared, they're starting to ask if we can take them literally, right, like, not like, can we take it literally? But, like you know, if the thing's happening in the text and we talk about how important it is, let's do that, let's do that. So it's, it's an interesting time.
Speaker 2:Your, your voice has said some fun things. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:So my third grader is growing up all the time. My first grader, this is his first year of public school. He's a little like private kindergarten. He's become really concerned with what he's going to wear and styling his hair.
Speaker 2:Malia has been into fashion.
Speaker 1:Okay so. So ours is more our outfit. So we're a little bit, we're the fit right. So he loves his soccer jerseys. He loves some T-shirts are cooler than others. So the other day he got on a carat because she matched like a black T-shirt and red shorts and he didn't say it this way, but basically like that didn't go with his shoes. He like that. He's like that's not, that's not what I want with these shoes. Basically like he wanted to wear dark color so he could have his green shoes really pop. And she was like I'm so sorry. And I was like you got to think about that. You got to think about it.
Speaker 1:But the one that got us that like fully sent me the other night was he was getting ready, we were brushing teeth. So not brush teeth, flush teeth. We did the bluey tactical. We right, like we're going to go to the bathroom and go, we're going to go potty before we go to bed. And he's like I want, I want to the comb. And I was like, oh okay, he starts combing his hair, which we typically just do in the morning. You're ready for school, he's combing, he's looking at himself and he's got beautiful like blonde, blonde hair, Like I used to have, Not anymore. And he goes I have handsome hair, You're not ready for your, your six year old, yeah, To just like throw himself a bone.
Speaker 2:You know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I got handsome hair and so it is. Uh, you know we are in the new chapter, we're in a new era, for sure, uh, but that's uh, we'll talk about that later. We want to bring you all the speed though. Uh, organization, we talked a lot in the last two episodes about organization. I think kind of at a ministry level, the turn we wanted to make today is for you, the minister, so in your own life, things that we would share wisdom from our own lives how do you get yourself organized? Some of that is getting the ministry organized, the calendar, the planning, the events, the scope, the sequence.
Speaker 1:But in the days, I think we spent a lot of time talking about the years and the months, this episode in particular. We want to talk about the days. The days of the week, like these are the days of our lives, and so I think we want to talk about the grind of ministry and how you don't get ground out or how you at least have a battle plan, so you feel like at the end of each day you couldn't feel good about the day, because that's the thing I want to start with. Is that most folks that feel the overwhelming snowball of stuff that leads to some version of disorganization is the battle is often one and lost in a day, in a day's time, right, like like you never really lose it all, you never really win at all, but if you can get a few good days in a row, you can feel like you're turning the tide. So I'm going to start there. So, chad Higgins, give us some daily wisdom. You were going to actually, I think, pitch it like as a question you want to ask.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm going to ask that at the very end.
Speaker 1:At the very end of me, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:That's how we're going to close, but we'll save that twist for the answer. Stick around for Chad's final question. The first thing I want to say is this that I think in this conversation, like most things we talk about, there is the hypothetical.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then there's the dream day versus the actual day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I want to start there. Okay, I think a lot of people that fail when it comes to organization, they read books or they read blog articles that are written from those you know, we've all met them. They're those people that have to have like all their pencils lined up and like the right direction, these idealized days yeah, and there are some people that let's just be honest, those are mental health disorders that are.
Speaker 1:That's a different podcast for a different day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's too much and we recommend help.
Speaker 2:But if you're, if you're unorganized, you look and you're like, oh, I should be doing that.
Speaker 1:That's what organization is Right yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think sometimes we try to take tips and tricks from people that are just like, naturally inclined that way, okay, and I don't know that that always works for everybody. So the first thing that I would say, even with everything that we're going to talk about in this episode, above all, find the things that work for you, yeah, that push you towards the direction that you want to go. Don't just do the things that are natural and easy, okay, those of what has gotten you to this place of feeling organized.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:So it is going to be a stretch for you, but finding things that actually work is going to be really important.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I think one of the first pitfalls for anybody looking to get organized is thinking that the tool was going to do the work.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, just because you have, like, there are so many apps you can download that are great apps, but if you never use it right, you use it once, it's not going to get it done. Like to the point that, like some of my favorite people in this space of organization management are like pencil paper post it. Like whatever you will actually use is the best tool, whatever you'll learn to use is the best tool. So the advocacy here is like man, if you just got this device, or just this app or this thing, it would change your life. Whatever works for you. Personal organization is, very frankly, that it is very personal. So you can be techie, you can be analog. Whatever works is what works. So to do that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So the first advice that I would give is this the thing that's helped me with organization is actually a spatial thing. Okay, so, if I get the room ready, well, create space for organization, okay, um, I think a lot of times when we start to have messy areas or even lack in organization and things like receipts, it often comes down to the lack of a space. Yeah, so it's really hard to keep a room organized If the goal is just, when we pick it up, we just want it to look nice, cause then there's never a place to put things back.
Speaker 1:Things have to go to a place Right Like a land somewhere. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so sometimes you can set yourself up in the beginning to stay organized long term.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So instead of just having the like catch all closet right To actually inventory the things that we have, that they go in a specific place.
Speaker 1:So it's like even if that closet is the summer storage closet, that's fine, that's where summer camp storage stuff goes Well. But I would, even I would, I would push even more.
Speaker 2:Okay For me, like I want to know, like okay, I don't know, igloo coolers all go on these racks.
Speaker 1:Stacked up nice Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Sports equipment. All goes in this big container.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so like it doesn't have to be like all my Frisbees are lined up. Yeah, if you want to go there, do that. Yeah, but I think labeling it allows it to like have a space that also allows when somebody else puts it up could find it, Cause that's one of the things we talked about, I think, in the first episode is good.
Speaker 2:organization allows for leadership to happen, for you to begin to delegate, and so now it's hey, will you help us pick up after camp? Yeah, you're not having. You want to be there right and help with the process if you can, but you're not the one going. Oh, let's put this here that you become the bottleneck because only you know where things go.
Speaker 2:It's labeled and we're able to see. This is exactly where these kind of things go, are put away. Um, and so anytime you buy something new, yeah or you bring something into the process, right, start to think through where does this go, where's it stored, housed, all that kind of stuff? That's good and that's going to help.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that even carries over into your own like let's make the space smaller, so your own office. You don't have to have an intricate file for receipts, but there should be at least a place that they go. Yep, uh, if you have an app that you're scanning and taking pictures and then you're keeping hard copies for 12 months, at least there's a desk drawer or an accordion file, something they go in, or, the bare minimum, a big envelope that I put all of this month in until the end of the month, and then we're going to, you know, run them through Like there's just got to be someplace for it to land, so it's not just filling up your wallet or laying all over your desk to end up becoming scratch paper or whatever.
Speaker 2:Boxes with lids are your friend.
Speaker 1:Yes, Labeled boxes with lids. Big fan of labeled boxes with lids.
Speaker 2:Because even, even, let's say, let's say, you have a real simple structure, Okay, every receipt that I'm going to get, it doesn't even have to look nice, it's going to go in this shoe box, yeah, okay, that sits on your desk, without a doubt. A shoe box without a lid is just messy. It's messy. You put a lid on that guy Organized Somehow. Yeah, right, like everybody that walks in your room now.
Speaker 1:Binders with cover sheet inserts Boxes with lids, exactly.
Speaker 2:Like there are little things like that that you can do to like help the help, just the image of what's happening there.
Speaker 1:Well, but also your own brain space, right?
Speaker 2:There's something about crossing off a to-do list and putting a lid on a box, yeah, the other thing that I would say with this, when it comes to space, is it's having spaces for things, but know when it's ready to be thrown away.
Speaker 1:Okay, have the term. Let me even write on the box like destroy December 31st or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So know your process right, like if those receipts, once they're turned in, yeah, they need to be filed for you know what I mean taxes or whatever, yeah then those can go off of your desk because they've already been submitted, and then they can go deep into a file somewhere that is tucked away because you're not dealing with that anymore, right? And I think sometimes we're still. We still have things on our workspace that were work, that are no longer work, and we need to move those out.
Speaker 1:The commentary from last month's sermon series. Put that bad boy back on the bookshelf, right he? Done you know like, or the notes you have or the scrap paper you're doing. I think this is actually one of the easiest ways to begin to turn the tide is to take 10 minutes whenever you're about to be done. Take 10 extra minutes. Clean your workspace off so that tomorrow morning when you show up it's in a posture of ready and not a posture of busy.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:Like today, like like having this room ready for us to record before you even got here we were ready. Like there wasn't. Like well, hold on, let me get the light out of the box and the whatever. Like it doesn't always live like this. Like this is like 50% of what it usually is, but yesterday, before I finished, I got this set up, so when you came in today, we're ready to go. I appreciate that You're welcome.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. Yeah, so I think having space is a big one. I think that that's an area that's achievable for everyone.
Speaker 2:It's going to be different for everyone, but I think creating places for those to happen and that's going to help you, not just with your desk or your room, but even think through, like okay, when it comes to the check-in process of students coming to Wednesday having space for the things is going to allow you to be able to plug leaders into it, explain it much easier, and so like do all of the elements that are used week to week have a space both to be kept and stored, but then also like the using process right, like I don't know how many times. You know you're trying to set up check-in and you're trying to find pins.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like those should be little things where it's like there's a drawer full of pins. We know where those kind of things are.
Speaker 1:There's a big cup full of pins.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:How'd y'all go with your 300 pins?
Speaker 2:We had 50 here and 250 in the back of Right and when they're strone everywhere, like you're just constantly grabbing those kind of things, and so I think minimizing those, allowing for space, is going to be a good, good thing to help you.
Speaker 1:So organizing the space you have. I think batching some of the tasks is something else that we can do. So offline or in real life. One of the ways on a Sunday or midweek, one of my dear friends in North Carolina in ministry has a clipboard that, like collapse open, close so you can have a list of important things on top and then you can open it up if you collect anything. So, whether it's maybe money for an event, a form, a new student, a prayer card, there's something you're carrying around with you that's dedicated to that work and then either that night or the next day, the next day, it's already for you to open and you can sort and distribute what you need to. But everything's all together in one place, ready to be organized, Instead of you having like two checks in your backpack and then a note card in your Bible and another thing folded up in your wallet, like like everything goes here and then that goes from our youth gathering time to my office and then from there it gets distributed and organized.
Speaker 1:Same for our desktop. So I know that's one of the areas you want to talk about. Our computer in a lot of ways is a virtual office your desktop, your, your Chrome tabs, your Safari tabs, like these are things that a lot of our brain space can be occupied just moving between all the stuff or looking for finding things. There's probably some weekly time doing some digital housekeeping, cleaning, putting some lids on digital boxes by putting old files backed up in a cloud drive and not cluttering your desktop putting them on an external hard drive. I can't think about all the times that I did my worst because I had things in places that I could not find them, to the point that I almost rewrote some resources or things that I already had. I just didn't know that it was because it was strewn about and not in the folder that I thought, yeah, I this is a.
Speaker 2:This is an actual class that I wish was taught.
Speaker 1:This is seminary level stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, specifically when it comes to organization of a laptop, like I don't. I don't think it's taught enough how to utilize mail. Our email is one of the apps that we probably use the most. Yeah, and. I have no structure with no structure.
Speaker 1:It's just like no tags, no flags, everything is just in the inbox. It's a pretty strong metaphor for how a lot of us feel about our work.
Speaker 2:And then it's just like I know that so and so sent me something. So then you're doing like random searches, like can't chat.
Speaker 1:chat can't file reimbursement. Yep can't find.
Speaker 2:it Never happened and the same way that you're going to create, hopefully create some folders on your desktop, and I'll kind of explain to you kind of how I try to set my stuff up. We'll talk through the mail. First is I try to create folders on this, on the side that are events or projects.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so anytime a new project gets started like that d now or that conference.
Speaker 1:yeah, whoever it's from, it's in that folder and I want to label it as such.
Speaker 2:So, like you know, d now 2020, yeah, is going to be a folder.
Speaker 1:That was a rough year, but it's a pretty empty folder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a pretty rough week.
Speaker 1:Of all the d now is that one had the either the fewest or the most emails, depending on whether you had a February or a March d now.
Speaker 2:I forgot about that. That was a rough year, and so everything that comes in about that or I send out about that- just drag it over there. It lives there. The other piece of there are sometimes that things just are back and forth that don't really fall anywhere, or kind of just general archive, archive archive.
Speaker 1:Archive.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's long threads, yeah, the only things that should be in your major inbox are like Action items action items right now. Yeah, these are things that we're currently working on please reply to blank and your your Inbox, in a way, is a to-do list for some folks.
Speaker 1:So I have a friend that literally that's he emails himself tasks to do. There is no app, there is no note paper. He lives and breathes out of email and so if it's get the proposal to Chad by Friday, he writes an email that says the details and maybe a link, and then he gets it done by cleaning out his inbox. Yeah, and that's how he does his work.
Speaker 2:The other thing, a way to do it. The other thing that I would really recommend, yeah, is you never, ever, ever, put that email on Anything not work related. Okay, that is not your Hulu login. Yes, yes, that is not your JC Penny's Credit card. You know what?
Speaker 1:I mean 15% off at IHOP for my birthday.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're welcome, and the minute that email address gets out there, yeah, the first email that you see. You've got to go to the bottom of that page. And subscribe yeah, every, every, every, every time, because the last thing that you want is your email to begin to be filled with Stuff like that feathered dirty. So go, buddy dude, go out, make some generic. Yeah, google email.
Speaker 1:That's free.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you, pastor admin at gmailcom and then that can just be the thing that you sign up for everything with. But you just know you, I like Domino's Q pause.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, cool dude 22 at the hotmailcom. Yeah, yeah, please, please, make all of your generic emails through hotmailcom. Yeah, you've got.
Speaker 2:You've got to clean up that space and try and protect it as much as you can, because you'll start to get a bunch of emails and man you will bring up to believe, open something, forget about it and it just lives there. And so trying to keep that as as Much as you can, just clean to where the things in your inbox or the things that have to get done, and then archive everything else, just, it's one more click, it's not gone real quick.
Speaker 1:Well, so that's the. That's the one that I want to get into for today I think that's the bulk of our conversation is a lot of the things that we're talking about Stim from a posture towards some of our work. That maybe is a word that we like using or not like using, but we procrastinate the extra click, the 10 minutes before you're done, the labeling of the stuff you got, like it's all a little extra. I mean, everything that we've talked about today is a little extra and for some folks they stop it the first thing instead of the extra thing. So, chad Higgins, how do we help? What causes that? What might someone who said no, chad, that's so many extra clicks, like? How do you encourage them in a way that like it is worth it? That's compelling, even in the ways in which we're like I just don't even know anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, procrastination is not about a thing of being lazy, it's a. It's an emotion.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's a feeling you feel, so not an ethic you have there's actually some recent studies has been going around about procrastination.
Speaker 2:That's it's. Everything is tied to this, like feeling that the work brings to you Okay, it's how you feel about your yes, and so a lot of times not the difficulty of the work, correct?
Speaker 2:It's why sometimes the easiest task, okay, really hard to get home, and now you're meddling now yeah, because because for us, like you don't want to do it, well, you don't want to do it, but honestly it don't make a difference exactly, but it makes you feel a certain way and A lot of times it it'll bring up these like I just don't like doing it or I know once I get into it it's gonna be miserable. It's the receipts, right, it's the just the. Sometimes it's the mundane work, yeah, that we want to put off.
Speaker 1:Because there's anybody gonna care there are those exciting things? Oh yeah, it's so much more fun to like, film and edit the video than it is to finish our expense reports by the 31st right.
Speaker 2:And so a lot of times, those things will get procrastinated. And I think a lot of times when we talk about Organization, those are the things that we feel like we failed at a lot of times in life, and so then we want to push it back and it's like, oh, no big deal. I'm moving on to these other things and I think that a lot of what we're talking about is it. I think we need to address it where it's true and realize, hey, like I've got some Mental-emotional things I'm actually working through in this, yeah, and I think sometimes we over, we overload ourselves with things, okay, and we feel like we've got to either get Everything done or nothing.
Speaker 1:Oh well, and because we couldn't get everything done, we inevitably decided to not get anything. Anything, yeah, and that is, I think, the challenge of trying to win it in the day. What can you reasonably get done? Yeah, I think for a lot of folks we talked about this in the pre-show they they don't always have because the day wasn't idealized, it wasn't the day they thought they were gonna have, or the thing took longer, or they were unsure how it was gonna take the end up not getting what they wanted done. They don't get anything done and so mean what it? What is the wisdom there of like, trying to like Accurately map out like what? How do we estimate our time better so that we actually can get the three things done we wanted to get done and not got the one thing that didn't quite get done. So now we got nothing done.
Speaker 2:Yeah so here's the thing that I would really recommend. It's the thing that's worked for me. I Will first say this you don't know how long everything's going to take, Okay you just don't?
Speaker 2:you can estimate it. Yeah, some things take less time, some things take more time. So, therefore, I Think you've got to be way in front of stuff. Okay, I the thing that helped, one of the things that helped me the most that I got to in student ministry is I never wanted to be working on anything that was happening that week, that week. Okay, if I'm riding a talk, it's for future.
Speaker 1:We, it's for future, we this week, at any point.
Speaker 2:Yes, like any of those kind of things, like I don't want to be finishing something even Monday that we're doing Friday. Yeah, because, and here's why, if I don't start it until then, and and it does take longer than I thought, or just life happens pinched yeah right like the. The tragedy Happens in this kids life. Yeah, we've got D now on Friday. Yeah, and I've waited till Thursday to mess it up, you know do something there's just no time left.
Speaker 1:There's no time left.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and so I. Obviously there's little things that have to happen the week of. You got a run to the grocery store, yeah, or whatever for that game that requires something to be cold, yeah, but those are low stress like Task items. Yeah, okay, but I shouldn't be planning or working out anything that week. I should be working on next week, because here's the deal if I don't get to it, I'm okay. Yeah, the thing that allows me to help in that area is remember. For me, I Gonna admit to myself, preston nation is this mental thing. So if I can keep my stress low, my anxiety low in these kind of things and chugging along a little by little, Then then we're gonna get there in the end. Yeah, and so I don't want to be working frantically.
Speaker 2:Yes so one of the things that I try to do Every week and and I'll be honest, I've heard that it's this is better done at the end of your week, but and I would I think it would be even better if I did it that way. I've just done it this other way so long. The first thing I like to do on a Monday morning is to check out the video description below is I like to plan out my entire week.
Speaker 1:Okay, You're deciding Monday, thursday and Friday.
Speaker 2:Yes, I wanna lay out, and not like the meetings I have, those are obviously oftentimes Schedule to reschedule or reschedule. Whatever. I wanna talk about the work that I'm trying to get done. My work for me, my work for me, that I've gotta get done to make sure that we get our stuff moving forward, yeah, a month down the road, right, and so I'm gonna start to lay that out. I'm gonna choose, okay, what are like three to five big things, like real big things that I wanna work on this week.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I'm gonna start to break it down into chunks. I think a good goal is like three to five things a day, okay, like smaller tasks inside of that bigger thing. I think there are obviously little things that we're gonna just do, right, but I'm talking about like I need to spend time on Monday working on this talk. Yeah, I'm gonna give myself time in there, yeah, and it may be a block.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where I'm like Monday morning I'm gonna work on that and I'm gonna give myself two hours, right, or?
Speaker 1:whatever, this is the time I've been given to get this thing done.
Speaker 2:The thing that I would recommend people begin to do is the realization that nobody just grinds always.
Speaker 1:And that's not sustainable. That's not actually what yeah?
Speaker 2:And so creating in your work day the realistic expectations of, by the end of the day, we're gonna move forward. I'm gonna get some things done, yeah. But if you're trying to go in there and schedule every 15 minutes of your life, you're gonna make it to like 10, 30.
Speaker 1:Yeah, gonna be burnout, you're gonna be burnout, and then you're not gonna get anything done that afternoon.
Speaker 2:But if you set realistic expectations for yourself and you're going, hey, I'm gonna write this on Monday morning and I'm gonna get it done, that's the other part of it. You've gotta actually get it done.
Speaker 1:You gotta get it done, not 70% done.
Speaker 2:You gotta get it done, the thing you gotta get done you gotta get done, because the reality is, there's a principle, it's Parkinson's no, no, I think it is.
Speaker 1:It's something like that no, no, no you're like it shouldn't be this.
Speaker 2:It's a principle that, whatever the timeframe that you put on something, it's how long it takes.
Speaker 1:It's how long it actually takes. Is that Pareto? Is that Pareto principle? No, I think that's 2080. It may be, but Parkinson's feels like it's the wrong answer.
Speaker 2:We'll look it up and put it in the comments. It's one of those things. It's like that's a disease. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Anyways, anyway, yeah.
Speaker 1:Things take, the time you give them is the principle.
Speaker 2:And so when you're like I'm gonna finish this within two hours, you're going to finish it within two hours. The problem is, when you're just like I gotta get this talk done, Then it just never gets done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because there was more time to do it. You're waiting until the end.
Speaker 2:You're waiting until the end.
Speaker 1:And so you give yourself a hard time. There is a velocity of work that comes, and that's why I think people procrastinate, because they get to feel that velocity, because it's like, oh man, I gotta get it done, I gotta get it done. So you feel like the hurry. The problem is it often comes across as hurried and not energized, which is not the place that you wanna be.
Speaker 2:And the thing that I would recommend is this If you give yourself two hours to get that talk done Two hour talk and you knock it out in an hour and 25 minutes, don't add something else, don't you did? Good, you won, you did good or do something in that space that you enjoy Coffee's for closers. Go grab a cup of coffee you won. Yeah, because what that's gonna do for you one, it's a little reward, yeah Right.
Speaker 1:Which we're huge fans of, like that is such one of our mutual friends. Whenever he gets his email inbox cleared out, he gets to have a bag of Swedish fish. That's his treat. That's his treat. Like every time that he gets his email inbox down to zero, he gets a bag of Swedish fish and then he's like almost like programmed himself to do that. So that's pretty good.
Speaker 2:It's good. But what's gonna help you in that one? It's gonna get you ready for the next thing that you gotta get done that you've already scheduled. So Monday I'm gonna try to schedule as many of those out all week. I often work in blocks. I really have about three blocks out of the day that I've found work best for me. I'll put big tasks in the morning for me and then I'll normally put like two to three smaller tasks in the afternoon that I wanna try to accomplish. I just know that post three o'clock I'm kinda worthless.
Speaker 1:Focus is done, energy's tapped. You're just, you're feeling it.
Speaker 2:I like to put myself in meetings later in the day, okay.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, 100%. The people that start their day off with a meeting. I'm like you're literally burning up the best part of the day, unless it's like the most important meeting of the whole week.
Speaker 2:Get out of here I can rise and grind earlier and then really in those later afternoon times I need to be around people. I love a one to two meeting and so connect that kind of way, and so I wanna put it in chunks like that. I wanna knock them out, but I wanna schedule my meetings, and so I have start time, end time. Every once in a while, when I'm really dragging, I'll even bust out a clock and timer. Okay, that helps me have a little bit of motivation.
Speaker 1:Now that's the Pomodoro technique of like you. Literally you set a 20 minute timer and you do as much as you can in 20 minutes or 26 or whatever, but basically like I'm sprinting, it hurts, like everything else has turned off. I'm only doing this. It makes my brain tired, but you'd be surprised how much you can do if you allow yourself to like uninterrupted focus of 20 or 25 minutes.
Speaker 2:But I think getting further out, giving yourself blocks to work on and then being done when you're done.
Speaker 1:I would even say getting further out, like man. If you feel overwhelmed right now and you're listening to this episode, you're like man. I'd love to be a week ahead. I feel a week behind. I would talk with your leader, your team. How do we get a week to reset, to get back on track? You don't stop working, but is there a week that maybe this is the dodgeball night or it is like the guest teacher night or whatever is in this clogging up and making you feel overwhelmed? You don't stop working, but you use that week of delegating away to get reset so you can be that week ahead because you were gonna prepare for the Wednesday but you had your friend come in and teach or you had someone else kind of lead the thing, so you actually had someone else in the driver's seat so you could get ahead for the next week. I don't think it's wrong. I don't think it's wrong to map and plan that way.
Speaker 2:No, and I think that there are weeks not that we wanna put it on autopilot, but I think that there are weeks that we could recycle things to get ourself ahead, especially if you've been in it long enough. There was probably a series that you'd done Two years ago. Yeah five years ago. None of those kids in this room even remember anymore. There's still great content that you're able to kind of pull back out, but to do that you had to have folders and you had to keep stuff. Something saved, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, you had a question you wanted to end us with.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:For a little urgency in our lives. So this is I like a little maker break chat here.
Speaker 2:Here's the question that I asked you before we started and I'm glad that it's made. This is a weird hypothetical For whatever reason. Life or death situation for me or Zach?
Speaker 1:okay, wait our lives are on the line. Our life is on the line, oh wow, our life is on the line.
Speaker 2:We have to walk alongside a random youth pastor who's not very organized.
Speaker 1:You know them enough and you kind of know what they're up against, but they are having a hard time. They do not know that Having a real goal they do not know that our life is at stake here, okay, okay, they're just having coffee with us and we're just trying to input wisdom.
Speaker 2:Whatever reason, they've asked us to be mentors of them. We get to walk next to them for six months, but at the end of the six months they have another six months to live it out. Oh, no, okay, and then it's. And then it's determined are they or are they not organized? Okay, okay, so you get to like mentor somebody. I know they're removal.
Speaker 1:Give them their best. Yeah, give them their best.
Speaker 2:But what is the biggest thing that you would say, dude, I got to get them to know this or do this to make sure that I live a year and a half from now, the one best thing. One best thing. You get one best thing.
Speaker 1:Start earlier in the day.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:I know that's from a guy that likes to wake up early. Now that didn't when I was 24 because I was coming out of college. Man, you have to. I don't think it's our crazy early, only if it's our like at 4 am or 5 am. But if you can start before people have demands on your time, you might win. And some of that is allowing people to not set demands on your time too soon, right?
Speaker 1:This is like if you can hold off that first meeting until 11 instead of 10, if you can push the collaborative session or the event Prep time to the afternoon, because you're really just going to spend 8 to 10 or 9 to 11 trying to get the things are the most important. You still, and we would spend six times, six months trying to figure out what the most important things are. But, man, if you can do all your most importance before lunch, the other stuff will get done in the afternoon. The social media graphics, the funny video shoot, the cleaning up the youth room that's great. After lunch, work, riding the communication to parents, finishing your talk, making sure your small group leaders have curriculum that's tuned to what they need that's 9 am Stuff. That's 8 am Stuff, maybe even 7 am, depending on your rhythm because you got batteries in the tank.
Speaker 2:You're gonna get ready.
Speaker 1:You're so ready and so like don't, that's not the stuff that you're gonna wait and get inspired to do. The inspiration comes from the routine of getting up early and getting after it. Okay, what's yours?
Speaker 2:What is the? My one thing you give dude, mine's gonna sound harsh, harsh, but if my life's on state, my life. You got to get new friends, okay, and and I think I don't think I would have saw the tie of that 10 years ago in something like organization, but it is a hundred percent true I think that the people that we surround ourselves with we become we fall to their expectations. Yes, and so the people that were the closest with have seen us up and down, and they're good with where we're at.
Speaker 1:Yeah they like you where you're at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think when you start to surround yourself with People that have a little bit higher expectation and you want that for yourself too, yeah, then you begin to live into that, and so I don't know that it's the end. I'll be all fix off for organization, but I know that that would be if my life's on the line. Somebody else, then I want them hanging out with the best possible or two, five other people that have them that figured out in their life. That's good. And so you want to become more organized. You find yourself three or four people that are organized yeah, and you start spending time with them, because we're a little bit social creatures, yeah, and you, you show up in their world with enough unorganization, yeah, when you become friends with them, the like poking happens, yeah it's like dude, yeah, come on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get it together and and we naturally will Start to solve some of those, because it becomes about this emotion thing. We don't, we don't want to be shamed, we don't want to be found out.
Speaker 2:Yeah and so we surround ourselves with people that are good with the level that we have, yeah, and we live into it, yeah, and and so I think for us, my life's on the line. I'm saying you got to find you four or five friends, push you a little bit better, killing it in Student ministry at an organizational level will you look up to and you will.
Speaker 2:They are just peer to, yeah, and you spend time with them, and not just as a leech, yeah, but it's like, hey, dude, like I want to get to know you we start hanging out. Yeah, that kind of stuff let's do together playing together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and over time, I think that's gonna make you better, not only an organization, but a lot of different areas. You in the same things, true, if you want to become a better communicator, you know, disciple or any of those kind of things hang out with the people that do it. Well.
Speaker 1:All right, there's your invitation to make some new friends this week on the podcast, talking about the ways which bring it organized, batch, adjust and grow. So we'll see you back next time. I.