Five ways a calendar can revolutionize your life

A critical principle each of us must learn is the value of time. Time is far more valuable than money because you can never get it back. Money comes and goes, but time just goes. Every time we place an obligation on our calendar, we write a "time check" that we cash on the day and time it is written for. What we often forget is that our calendar is a fabulous tool to help us use our time most wisely.

Here is something to think about. A calendar is not just a "time to do list" to remind us of everything we have committed to. But that is how we often use it. We dutifully put our obligations on our calendars so that we don't forget them, but that is not the primary purpose of a calendar. That is simply a to-do list with a time and place attached to it.

A Calendar, rightly used, is far more than this. It can be a fabulous tool to help us achieve our calling in life, our responsibilities at work, our marriage and family commitments, and all of those things that are of importance to us. It is not a "time to-do list." It is a sophisticated tool to help us achieve our goals in life. Let me explain.

Organizing our time
At its most simple, calendars help us organize the elements of our lives that are all time-constrained. Like the filing system for our email, a calendar helps us to organize our time because we believe that time is valuable. Anything of value is handled with care and stewarded. If time is valuable, we need to handle it with care and organization.

Prioritizing our activities
Not all activities are of equal value. But how do we ensure that we are focused on those activities of the greatest value? Here is a simple principle: Those things that are most important always go on our calendar before other things are added. This is true in our work, our family, our marriage or any other part of our life. This is far different than a "time to-do list." It actually helps us schedule our priorities first because we want to live intentionally rather than accidentally.

Evaluating our spending
Not monetary spending but "time" spending. Think of your financial decisions. An analysis of our bank statement can tell us not only where our money is going but also whether we are using our finances to achieve our financial priorities. If retirement is important, but we are putting only a small amount into our fund, our spending does not reflect our priorities. In the same way, our calendars tell us in real-time if we are actually spending time in a way that reflects our priorities. Thus, our calendar helps us to evaluate our lives and commitments.

One way to use your calendar to determine your "time" spending is to color code your commitments so that you have a visual picture of where you are spending your time. It is visual management for your life.

Aligning our time with our values
Values represent what is important to us. My marriage, for instance, is important to me. That means that my time commitments to my wife and the health of my marriage should be reflected on my calendar. If it is not, I need to realign my time priorities to align with my values.

Because our time commitments should reflect our values, wise people read their calendars often, and as they do, they ask themselves the question, "Am I spending my time in ways that reflect my values?" And "Where do I need to realign my "time" spending? It is helpful to take scheduled time each month to examine one's calendar and ask these important questions.

Choosing to say yes or no
How often do we have a problem saying no? When we should! Your calendar can help you determine whether you ought to say yes or no to commitments that come your way. A great way to do this is to develop the habit of saying, "Let me check my calendar and see if it fits" when asked to add something to your calendar. Don't answer on the fly. Rather, take a day or two, look at the time commitments you have, and give yourself the freedom to agree or say no on the basis of how it fits into your priorities. Don't cash time checks you don't want to!

One final thought. There is a video from Bill Gates making the rounds entitled "Busyness is the new stupid." I agree. Yet we fill our schedules to overflowing and, in the end, get too little rest, think time family time, and live with fatigue and frustration. Use your calendar to manage your time so that you don't live in the tyranny of the urgent - at least most of the time!

What real values underlie your ministry and can you name them?

All ministries operate out of a sense of values, either stated or non-stated. The best ministries have a clear set of values that everyone knows and lives by. Most ministries have a written set of values that no one knows and few live by. Which describes your ministry?

I often interact with church staff and leaders and ask them this question: "What values underlie your ministry?" In most cases I am told that there are a set of values somewhere but they would need to look them up. That is an "Ah Ha" moment for me as it indicates that whatever values are written down, they do not impact the ministry in the least.

Values matter - a great deal. When there is not a set of values all are committed to, everyone lives by their own set of values. In other words, there are competing and disparate sets of values rather than a set of values that unites. One of the most critical jobs of a leader is to establish values that undergird everything the ministry does. Often leaders do not do the hard work of clarifying values which leads to competing values. 

Competing values lead to competing agendas which leads to conflict and misunderstanding. Do you have a set of values that all in your organization subscribe to? If not you have competing values and it will lead to chaos over alignment.

Posted from Oakdale, MN

All of T.J. Addington's books including his latest, Deep Influence,  are available from the author for the lowest prices and a $2.00 per book discount on orders of ten or more.

When you need to digest bad news

From time to time, organizational leaders need to face and digest bad news. There is always the temptation to become defensive, to want to minimize what we are hearing or to ignore it altogether. We may feel that we have failed or have not led well. This is precisely when we need some values to fall back on and I often fall back on four specific values that help me hear, digest and deal with bad news.

The first is that "I have nothing to prove and nothing to lose." If that is true, I don't need to prove that I am right, nor do I lose if I am wrong. It is a freeing way to live as I don't need to become defensive, don't need to defend or be right. It is a humble position that allows us to grow.

The second value is "autopsy without blame." I am less concerned with who is responsible for what has happened than I am in understanding what has happened and learning from the situation. In most cases, it is not about blame but about making key observations, understand why something has happened and then figure out a way forward.

The third value I live by when there is bad news can be understood by the phrase, "Do not underestimate my resolve." Once we know that there is something we need to resolve and move toward, we are committed to going there no matter what. It is the commitment to do the right thing even when feels inconvenient.

A fourth truth is that "What got us to here got us to here. It will not get us to there. Organizations must periodically reimagine the future and realize that many of our methodologies, paradigms and strategies need to change to get to the next level of ministry success. Thus in the face of bad news we need open minds as to what is best as we look to the future.

Bad news can actually be good news if we learn from it, grow from it and get better because of it. But, that all depends on our own ability to face it and deal with it in a healthy way.

A ministry creed

Ministries talk a lot about their unique philosophy of ministry - the things that drive how they do what they do. But have you considered your philosophy of how you work with other ministries? 

ReachGlobal's approach can be summed up in two phrases: "It is about the Bride, not the brand," and "We don't own, control or count anything as ours." Unlike the business world where there is much that is appropriately proprietary, the ministry world is all focused on the same thing: Making the Gospel well known.

Because it is about the Bride (the church) not the brand (my brand of the church) we can and will cooperate broadly with others who are both missional and evangelical. We do not allow the small differences in theology to keep us from working with those, like us who want the Gospel to penetrate our world. Nor do we assume that our brand has a corner on the truth. In heaven there will be no brands except a Jesus brand!

With the declaration that we don't own, control or count anything as ours, we willingly give away everything and anything we learn along the way, want to be generous in helping other ministries and will never control our ministry partners. Who owns it all? Jesus! We want to make His name well known and His reputation great. We live in the spirit of unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17. It is a great place to live.

Have you thought deeply about your ministry philosophy as it relates to other ministries? We opt for being a ministry of humility and service.

Do core values or guiding principles really matter?

Do core values or guiding principles really matter? They do if we are serious about them because when we carefully craft them, know them, live them and align our ministry decisions to reflect them they form the culture or the DNA of our church or ministry.

I recently came across the core values of a new church plant in Athens, Georgia: Living Hope Church Athens. Reading them I immediately knew what kind of church they aspire to be. It is a DNA that would please Paul who wrote to the Ephesians about what it meant to be a healthy church.

Of course such values mean nothing if not lived out in the day to day life of a church. Knowing the church planter on this one I believe they will be. Does your ministry have a defined set of values that define your culture, that everyone knows, that all are committed to and that guide your decisions?

Our core values

Gospel-centered

We will seek to bring everything back to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News of salvation in Him.

Theological Worship

Our worship will seek to combine biblical truth with the freedom of the Spirit.

Prayer Saturated

As a declaration of dependence on God, we will seek to make prayer the foundation of all we do.

Authentic Relationships

People are encouraged to be transparent about their struggles and victories.

Expository Preaching

Preaching through books of the Bible will be our normal way of teaching.

Discipleship

We will help people progressively grow in their maturity such that they can assist others in doing the same.

Word and Spirit

We want God’s Spirit to be free to move, while filtering everything through the Word of God (i.e. Bible).

Elder Governance

The plurality of godly elders will be the authoritative leaders of the church.

Welcoming

We will be proactive about welcoming people of all ethnicities, social status, church backgrounds, etc.

Church Planting

We will seek to plant many churches out of this church.

Our vision is to be a Word-rooted, Spirit-empowered, and culturally-engaged church that seeks to bring:

·         salvation to the lost,

·         healing to the hurting, and the

·         training of leaders

to help reach the world for Jesus Christ.