Project Management for Pastors – Rev. Bryan Wolfmueller

Transcript (edited for readability).

It's finally, it's finally time for something profound. Finally. I'm a little bit embarrassed, in fact. I should tell you this right at the outset, that it's the first time I've talked or done anything with a group about this sort of thing. Normally, I have the great privilege of talking about theology and doctrine in the Lord's word. This is not that. This is fantastically practical stuff. I hope it is fantastically practical. Really, in fact, a conversation about advanced common sense. How it is that we address the various things, big and small, that are dished to us constantly. I mean, constantly, right? How we manage those, how we track those, how we are able to give attention to what needs attention, and not give attention to what doesn't need attention, how we're able to sort through all of this, wade through all of it, and consider it as well. So that's what we'll do for the next few minutes. And if you guys have questions or thoughts, I think even along the way, although I'd like to get at least close to the end. So we'll try to get close to the end, and then if you have questions or anything like that, then please do stop me.

This is how it was for me. I think maybe even the first time I went through DOXOLOGY, and being a pastor for three, four years and starting to consider questions of sustainability and this sort of thing. And I was constantly, constantly behind. And I could not escape that. I called it the fuzz, the kind of cobwebs that just were building up from the things that had my attention. And I was, and this is a bad word, but I was busy. I didn't like that at all, but I couldn't escape it. And it kept getting worse.

So it would start where I would remember things, and I would remember things at the absolutely worst time to remember them. I'd remember, for example, oh, I've got to do something at 9:00 at night, and I'd remember the thing that I have to do tomorrow. Or, and it would get worse. Now it's midnight, and I would wake up, I've got to do that thing tomorrow. Or a month later, it was midnight, and I would wake up. Oh, that's the thing I was supposed to do today. Until I just got rolled by this stuff.

And there was a point, and I'll tell you that there was a point where I was ready to, I thought, I've got a couple of options here. I need to either go back to school and study project management or quit the ministry. I mean, it was a very kind of desperate time, and I happened to cross some of these things, and I want to show it to you. But this is the idea. Let's see if this works here. There we are. There's this fuzz that comes along with the vocation of pastor. And I want to talk about it, set it up for a minute.

Now, either you're ready for this or you're not. And if you're not ready, that's okay to take a nap, but just remember, I'll give you the name of a couple books, so when you are ready for it, you'll know where to go. But this is for Dr. Senkbeil. He may read this book, and there's this great sentence. This is Eugene Peterson, the contemplative pastor. Hilary of Tours diagnosed our pastoral business as irreligiosa sollicitudo pro Deo. Yeah, yeah. A blasphemous anxiety to do God's work for him. Eugene Peterson comments. It was a favorite theme of C.S. Lewis that only lazy people work hard. By lazily abdicating the essential work of deciding and directing, establishing values and setting goals, other people do it for us, and we find ourselves frantically at the last minute, trying to satisfy half a dozen different demands on our time, none of which is essential to our vocation, to stave off the disaster of disappointing someone. Running around, putting out fires.

Now, we were in the process of looking to call an associate pastor. This picture is, I think it's a couple of pages after where we are in our book. We're on page 22. It's on page 24 or something like this. This is my attempt. We were in process a few months ago of calling an associate pastor to Hope. In the meantime, we have a vicar this year and we're looking to call an associate next summer. But the elders were asking me, they said, what's the other pastor gonna do? And I said, he's going to be a pastor. And I realized that that didn't answer the question for them. It wasn't enough to say, because really the question was, well, what in the world do you do? And I said, aren't you guys on Facebook? You should know what I do. But I thought about it. What is it that a pastor does? This picture came out of that conversation.

I started with the seven duties of a pastor from Gerhard, Johann Gerhard, right, about the seven duties of a pastor, that the pastor preaches, the pastor teaches, the pastor administers the sacrament, the pastor lives as a Christian example, he cares for the sick and the poor, he prays for his congregation, he preserves the worship traditions of the church. And then I added, I just started adding blocks like this. So there's personal study and all the things that go around there, Greek and Hebrew, studying the Book of Concord and other theology, individual prayer, preparation, a Bible class, going on calls. There's the whole area of the administration of the church, and stewardship, church discipline, administration, meetings, being part of the ministerium, and the synod, and writing, and publishing, and all of this sort of stuff, so that this is my way of capturing all the various different things that a pastor does. The pastor's a human being. I've been trying to convince people that we should consider being a human part of our vocation, but I haven't succeeded with anyone. But anyway, it's there. I got the, you can't get to this file, so it's there. But this is my, and I gave this to the elders and they said, oh, man. You sure you want them to do all that? Yeah, well, that's kind of it. Now, you guys can tell me if I'm missing something or if I should add something.

There's a lot of various different things. In fact, it's one of the great things about being a pastor, is that today is different than tomorrow. I mean, this hour is different than next hour. It's perfect for guys like me that have attention deficit, right? You just got to wait for five minutes and you have a totally different thing to do.

But here's how it maybe looks more practically. This is shaking hands with people as they leave church. Now, tell me if this is not exactly how it goes. Hey, Roberta says, my test results come on Wednesday. Oh, thanks for telling me. Quentin says, hey, pastor, I think our church website's looking a bit dated. Tim says, oh, Luke's in town for the summer. The altar guild says, this happened a couple weeks ago, we quit. Okay. That's nice. Susan says, I just read this great sermon from… I was making stuff up. This didn't really happen. Just making stuff up. Here's a new family, we're the Andersons. We just moved to town. Christie says, could I get a copy of your Bible study notes? Oh, go forward now, let's see. Work stuff. Oh, John, my congregational president. I didn't get a chance to distribute the council minutes, and we should talk about usher training at our next meeting. Okay, John, thanks. Ruth says, I love that last hymn to be at my funeral. Frank says, I've got cancer. Carrie says, we're out of ice. Kim says, I changed my phone number. I did not know for five years as a pastor, I did not know how to deal with that. I mean, I changed my phone number. That's not a big deal, but there's actually a lot of things that go into that. Bill, remember our New Year's Eve party? Bill, it's June. Okay, Bill. Joanne says, did God create the demons? And Jeff says, we should go to Israel. Now, okay, got it. Good questions, good stuff.

Now this is a lot of different stuff, guys. Just in 10 minutes. I mean, it's coming at you. And what are you going to do with it? I mean, what sticks out from that whole thing? I've got cancer. And you are tempted, I suspect, to drop everything else for that. But all this stuff, the small stuff and the big stuff, is all handed over to you as a pastor. It's all handed over to you as a pastor. And this results, I mean, this is not just shaking hands after church. This is when you go and open your email. You get 100 emails every day. 100 emails that need action. You get into church and you have 10 messages there. And, I don't know how it is in your minds, I only live in my own mind, but there's constant ideas and thoughts, projects and talking to people and the communications and the various things you have to do. It just comes at you. There's just a lot of it. Now, I would make a list of the top three things I need to do on Sunday, but then what do I do with all the other stuff?

Now, here I think is my diagnostic, my diagnosis of this thing. The do, the what's next, is most of the time vague and internal. In other words, how am I trying to keep all of these things straight? The answer is, I'm just going to try to remember. Or maybe I jot it down on a scrap of paper and put it on my desk or something like this. And you all have, now, do you have piles of paper on your desk? The reason why you put the paper on your desk is so that you'll remember it's there. Right? But now the pile of things you want to remember is about two feet high, so you got to start another pile. And the point is, you know, you know that you're going to find that paper, that scrap of paper, in 12 years when you accept another call. And you're packing up your desk. And so, well, now what are you going to do with it? And you tried to remember it. But your mind is made, not for holding ideas, but for having ideas. You need something else to hold the idea. So that, look, the do is vague and internal. It should be clear and external. That's the goal of all of this, that our next actions are clear and external.

So how do you get there? I found this guy. Here's the story. This guy's a Buddhist, I think. David Allen. How many of you guys know David Allen, Getting Things Done? A handful of you guys. I found this guy, and I found him like this. I told you I was, things were fairly busy at the congregation. I have a family with four children, four young kids, my daughter Hannah turns 13, which that fact was the result of a number of jokes from Dr. Nestingen the other day about having a 13-year-old. I appreciate that. Talking about how it's a punishment for my former sins. But a family, and I had a handful of other things going. I had a few writing projects that were happening. I was elected to serve on a board, had another couple of projects, a radio show, and a lot of things like this, and it was just an incredible amount of mental stress. I remember, it's hard for me to, in fact, remember those days. But I remember that I was having trouble sleeping and eating and all this sort of stuff. It just kind of built up to the point where I realized that something has to be done here. There has to be some sort of strategy to approach this.

And so I was doing some project management, searching for some project management software on the internet. I came across a podcast by David Allen, who wrote these two books. And it was a guided minesweep is what he called it, a 45-minute sort of thing. And the idea was that he would just remind you to write down certain things so you could just write it down. And he would say, for example, are there any phone calls you need to make? Write them down. Are there any emails that you need to return? Are there any letters that you need to write? Are there any people that you need to talk to? Are there things that you need to fix at home or at work? Are there things you need to finish writing? Are there things you need to research? Are there things that you need to read? Are there projects that you need to complete? And you just walk through it. It's supposed to be 45 minutes. And for me, it was like the valve was opened, and I started writing this down. I mean, I was listening and doing the dishes, and I stopped doing the dishes, and I started writing. And I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote, and I filled up a page, and I filled up another page, and I filled up another page. Three days later, I was still writing down all of the things that I was supposed to do. All the commitments that I had made, things that I had promised, or wondered about, or thought about, but just hadn't had any way to sort of externalize them.

It reminded me of when I was a young man, at the age of, I must have been 18 years old. I spent three and a half or four months in the Fiji Islands, in this really remote village, and about two weeks into my time there, I got a parasite in my intestines. And it was great. I lost like 25 pounds. That was as good as I ever looked before, you know. That's not going to be my weight loss program, is just to give someone a parasite. But the bad side of it was that every morning at 4, 4:30 in the morning, I would wake up with these extreme stomach cramps and run out of the hut to the outhouse, you know. And this is how it was when listening to David Allen in my mind. It was just… for three days. And I realized I was incredibly mentally stopped up.

Now, so that's fine. And I wrote, really, I tell you, all this stuff came out, but now, then the question is, now, what do you do with it? I gave you guys a list of 16 things there. But now it's out, but what do you do with it? So David Allen has a process for this, and I mean, really, you guys can just read this book. But the idea here is that you want to achieve a clarity and you want to externalize the stuff.

So I recommend, I cannot commend these books to you quite enough. In fact, I will commend them to you with celebrity endorsements. Are you ready? I got this guy, Jonathan Fisk, on these books. Getting Things Done probably gained me three hours a week in my schedule, which is huge. Now, for me, personally, it was about an hour and a half a day, extra time to work. Now that's a lot. Fisk isn't as good as me. That's the thing. You only got three hours in a week. He did say to me, though, at one point, after he read this book, and we talk about it quite a bit, he said, Bryan, I think this saved my life. Jared Melius is a buddy of mine in Colorado. I followed Getting Things Done about 2.5 years. I still have stress. I don't get everything done, but when I put my head on the pillow at night, it's no longer spinning with all the things I might be forgetting to do. Now, that's nice, huh? Or you guys know Todd Peperkorn? Getting Things Done system has freed me as a pastor from being a slave to my task lists. It's allowed me to be more fully present for my people when I'm ministering to them because I don't have the thousands of things I need to get done knocking around in my head all the time. They're written down so I don't have to remember them. Or here's Commander John Wolfe, a member of my car. After Getting Things Done, the email juggernaut is slain. Helps me declutter my brain, which already was a scary place. I redesigned my email inbox based on the flow chart. I keep a waiting-for list with folders for each troop and a weekly list of project issues I'm tracking for each. Within that list, I keep items I need to alert my bosses when I meet next with them. I collect actions during the day, in my day planner and binder, add them to my list at the end of the day, staff meetings run more smoothly. It's all on paper instead of getting lost in my memories. My guys threaten to throw out my day planner. Because he remembers what they're supposed to do too. Or here's the best of all. This is Carrie. I don't have to remember stuff for Bryan anymore. Which is nice. And I'm not worried he's going to burn out.

So here, two things, clarity first. Clarity. You have to clarify your to-do. You have to ask this question: what does it mean? Was ist das? So I want to try it. I just want to try an experiment. Do you have a blank page there on your paper? I want you guys to do this. I want you just to jot down something that's on your mind, and it could be anything, but something that's on your mind as a loop that has not been closed. Like, for example, maybe mom's on your mind. Now, why is mom on your mind? Oh, mom's birthday is coming up. What, something on your mind? And then I want you to ask yourself this question. What does finished look like in regards to this? What does done look like? What's on your mind? What is your best or desired outcome? Or how can this possibly come to an end? So jot that down. And then ask yourself this question. What is doing? In other words, what is the next physical action that will move me towards this desired outcome? And jot that down. I don't know. Just think about it.

Does someone have an example? You got one? Yeah. I need to visit 12 new member families that I have not gotten. Yep. Yep. So. Yes. A list with a check mark after everything. That's right. Yeah, that's right. So I need to visit. There's 12 families I want to visit. There it is. So what is the next action? Now, can you go see them? Will they be home? Do you need to call and make an arrangement? So the next action is what? Call Fred, schedule visit. That's your next action or whoever it is. Pick someone on the list. Yeah. I don't know if his name is Fred or not, but… Call Fred.

See, now watch. I was talking to my vicar the other day. He's got the responsibility of hosting a community meal in a few weeks, and I said, what's your next action? And he says, I need to get more volunteers. I said, get more volunteers is not an action. You cannot get more volunteers. You can't stand somewhere and do that. They're not for sale at the store, volunteers. You have to do something else. So what is it? And he says, well, I have to ask someone. Ask someone is not an action. There is no such thing as someone. You're living in abstraction. Push it down to the concrete. He says, I don't know. And I said, your next action is this. Ask pastor who I should ask to volunteer. Now, that's something you can do. So that, you see, this is the clarity, to push the vagueness to actually doing, to something that you can actually do.

Now, say you don't know what to do. Like, mom's birthday's coming up. I gotta think if I want to have a birthday party for mom. So my next action is, think about having a birthday party for mom. That's actually something you can do. Sit there and think about it. So that counts. But you got to get to that clarity. See? Now, did you guys do this? Did you finish this? Now, do you feel, is there a little bit of relief about that thing that you were thinking about? There should be, a little bit of relief. Back there in the back, but they're probably not paying attention. I saw no relief. Look, clarify, you have to think about your stuff more than you realize, but not as much as you're afraid of. And, look, if you don't pay attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves. Okay? So we want to fight for clarity on these sorts of things.

But it is not enough to have clarity. You have to have a place to put it once you've clarified it. You have to have a tool. I would like you guys to imagine what it would be like if I came and stole your calendar. Oh, yeah, I got it backed up on Google. I stole that too. You know, I hacked your Google account, and you couldn't have access to your calendar. Now, just imagine that. How would that be? When you woke up in the morning, and you don't have a calendar. Do you have the sense of the anxiety that that would cause you? Why? Yeah, because you can't remember everything. And your calendar represents, your calendar is basically just a list that represents a number of commitments that you've made with other people, that you know that you can't keep in your mind, so you have a tool to keep them for you. That's what the calendar is. It's an external tool to track your commitments to other people. And you know that if you don't do them, that you will disappoint someone. In fact, is there anyone in here that doesn't use a calendar? I want to see that. Because I imagine maybe Pastor Swerla doesn't use a calendar. He does even. Everyone? Now, this is an admission. The fact that you use the calendar is an admission that you need an external tool and that you don't trust your mind. You don't trust your mind.

But here's the problem. Not everything goes on a calendar. Not everything can fit on a calendar. Some things shouldn't be on a calendar, so you need other tools. Half of life, this was quite a realization to me, half of life is just keeping lists. Well, maybe not half. A third, a huge part of life. You know, does this happen to you? When I was ministering the first couple of years I was a pastor, maybe three or four years, I had about 40 funerals. And the thing that came up over and over in these funerals was this. Boy, this is a lot of work for the survivors. I never knew dying was so much, there was so much paperwork involved. Right? So the first thing, if someone dies and they go to the funeral home, is they give them a list of all the things they have to do. I mean, there's so much of life is keeping these lists, which is a pain. But the sooner we realize it, the better so that we can have our lists in order.

Now, there are, and this is a hope, a relief to you, that there are eight tools that you need to keep every single piece of information that you would possibly have. Now, you have one already, a calendar. You probably have a second one, which is a trash can. But there are six more that you need. And if you have less than this, then you don't have enough shelves for all your stuff. If you have more, you maybe have redundant ones. But there are eight places, eight baskets, eight lists that you need for everything. And if you have these in place, then there is a place for everything. I listed them here. Trash, reference file, a list of someday-maybe, a list of things that you're waiting for. I'm going to talk about all these. A calendar, a next-action list, a project list, and a list or files for support stuff.

I've got a picture of it here. But I've got a better picture here, which this picture should be in your book. This is on page 25. Which is a workflow processing. And if you look around the outside of it, you will see these eight baskets. Now, this is really quite helpful because, you know, you have to have a place to park the stuff or else it gets stuck in the system. It gets put on your desk. The reason why a piece of paper is on your desk or in your pocket or something like this is because you don't have another place for it and you want it to have your attention.

How many, I just am interested in doing a survey. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? How many emails are in your inbox? Oh, this morning or last time you checked? 35? Come on, so you guys can do better than that. How many of you have 1,000-plus emails in your inbox? Yeah. You used to, what happened? What's that? Put them ahead of a place for all. Did you read Getting Things Done? Okay, different, something new. A thousand? You talk to your wife, wife got you done. How many of you have, who has the most? Anyone have 10,000-plus? How many? How many you guys have? What? How many? 10 or 11,000? 12,000? Now that's pretty impressive.

Now, the reason why they're there, right? Tell me if this is right, if I'm right or wrong about it. The reason why the email is there is because you look at that email, and you have decided, well, either number one, you were just too lazy to delete it. You didn't need it, but you didn't want to delete it. That could be one. Or, number two is, you knew that that needed some sort of action, and you didn't want to forget about it. But it's still there. Sure, you haven't done anything about it, because there's not a place to put it. So my suggestion to you is that these lists here. Now, you could do it a different way. I mean, a million different ways, I'm sure. So this is just common sense stuff, so there's not any requirement to do it this way. But this is what has been incredibly helpful for me. So I want to look at a couple of these baskets, zoom in, and then work through how this thing works.

So here's the first one, and that is the calendar. Now, the calendar is for things that must be done on a certain day or at a certain time, and for nothing else. Now, one of the old ways of managing your time was you have your calendar, and then you have your daily list, and one of the things that you put on your list was the three most important things that you want to do that day, or something. So you take your calendar, and you add to the calendar things that you want to accomplish that day. But not things that must be accomplished that day. And what that does is it muddles things up. That move, to put things that don't have to be done on a day, is a move away from clarity, not towards clarity. But it was a necessity, because there was no other place to put them. You were living simply off your calendar. So the calendar is a sacristan. It is only for things that are for a calendar list.

Now, there's another basket over here, and these are some of the baskets that really saved my life. This was one of them. And that is that you have a list of things that you are waiting for. And on this list goes things that you are waiting for. Like, for example, you loan someone a book, or you call somebody, or you assign someone a task or a project, or you send someone something and you want it back or whatever. I sent someone an email and I want to remember that I'm waiting for a response from them. I've asked someone a question and I haven't gotten an answer. Now, what this waiting-for list allows you to do is delegate things, and know that you won't forget about them. I mean, I don't know how many times that I would not delegate something to anybody in the church, because I simply knew that if I did it, I would totally forget. And so would they. And then it wouldn't get done. That's your waiting-for list.

Now there is a list called Next Actions. And this list is for things that do not have a required date or deadline, but just should be done as soon as possible. And this list, I've got some next-action lists, and I counted up the other day for my next actions, and I think on my next-actions list, I have something like 295 things. That's a lot. There are things that need to be done, but don't have to be done at a certain particular time.

Now, this is quite incredible. Yes, sir. I want to ask already if you're doing all of this with email or do you have multiple? I can show you that. Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you how you do it. I mean, if you just keep a paper list, then that's how I did it at first. I just had a piece of paper that said next action, at computer, and I had a list of things I needed to do at the computer. Your next-action list is so big, if you can divide it by location, it's particularly helpful wherever you are. So at the office, in my study, at the phone, at the computer, at running errands, at home, et cetera, and here's the things. And at first, I kept it on paper. Then I use different things, and I can tell you how I organize the lists, too. I think it's different for each person. I use this software that comes from China. I'm the only person in America that uses it, I think. But there's a lot of resources to help manage where the lists go. So that's helpful too.

Some guys do their email just as their own email thing. So they'll have a folder that says action. And if an email requires action, they'll move it to that folder. Or if a reference file, they'll just move it to their archive folder so that they can clean it out, so that when it's time to do emails, they'll just go to the action folder and crank through them. I have these, at church, at home, at phone, at email, at computer, agendas. So that would be, for example, I have at elders or at council meeting, so that if I have something that needs to be done at the council meeting, I just tag it with that, so I have a list of all these things there. They go, at Carrie, is there something I need to tell Carrie? She's busy, so I'll write it down, and then I'll check that when I see her next. There it is, at the office, all this sort of stuff.

And then here's another one. This is a project list, and this is simply a list of all of the projects that you have going on that are not actionable, but require multiple actions to get done. And this is really, all of these lists were, for me, quite a relief, so I can actually look and see on one page, well, it's like three pages now, but I can look and see all the projects that I have going on in one glance. It's really quite nice, because before, I would be in the middle of all these sorts of things, but I would forget. Like, there are some projects that you want to forget about. I was accidentally elected to the board for national missions of the synod, and I forget that I'm on the board between meetings purposely. So that the meeting comes up, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm on this thing. So there's some projects that you don't want to remember. But other projects, it's kind of handy to remember that you're in the middle of them, right? You know, oh, yeah, we're building an elevator at church, or, oh, yeah, I'm trying to put together the curriculum for Bible study for the youth this coming year. And when I have some time and I'm looking at this, then here's the projects that I have going on. Projects are listed here.

And look, each project has, you have to get to this point of clarity, where each project has a finish. This is how I know it's done. And each project that you have has a next action, even if it doesn't belong to you. I mean, even if you're waiting on a quote for how much the thing is gonna cost from some company or whatever, you have that there. You're waiting for a quote from an architect or whatever.

So here's how we process it. Your stuff goes in the in-basket. This is your desk, is your in-basket, probably. You also have an inbox for your email. It goes in and you ask the question, and this is the clarity question, what is it? What does this mean to me? Does it have meaning? That is the most important question. The next question, after I've clarified what this thing means, is, is it actionable? And if it's not actionable, then I'm going to throw it away. Or I'm going to incubate it. I'm going to put it on my someday-maybe list. Or I'm going to put it in my files, maybe I want to keep it around. So they can go in these places. Now, I got to have these there because, oh, maybe I want to read this at some point later, or maybe this is some sort of meaningful piece of information, but it doesn't require action. I got to have a place to keep it. So that's what this is all for.

But then look what happens. Is it actionable? Sorry, there's the three places. But say it is actionable. Then the question is, we got to clarify, dig down further. What is the next action? Again, this requires work. To think this way and push down further. If it's part of a bigger picture, say it's part of a project or something like that, then I'm going to put it over in the project loop, but I'm going to ask this question. Is the action less than two minutes? And if it is, I'm going to do it, because it's going to take more time to track it than just to do it. Two minutes, do it. The next question is, can somebody else do it? And if someone else can do it, then I'm going to delegate it. And I'm going to note that on my waiting-for list. If it can't be done in two minutes, and it can't be done by somebody else, then it has to be deferred. In other words, I'm not going to do it now. So now the question is, must it be done on a specific day at a specific time, and if so, then it goes on the calendar. If not, then it goes on the next-action list.

Now, there is then, sorry, let me see if I can go back. There is then with what we're looking at here, there is a place now for every single thing that comes to you to end up. Now, I don't know, you guys could test me on this. It's been probably about three years that I've been kind of working through this, working this way. And I haven't found a thing that doesn't fit yet.

Okay. So here's how it works. I just want to show you guys. Okay? Work. You still have to actually do the stuff. This doesn't get you out of that. But you remember this? Now, I've made it into a list. Now, you can hardly see it, so sorry about that. But I've made this into a list, but still it's not yet there. But here's the first one. Roberta says my test results come on Wednesday. All right, what does that mean? Calendar, Wednesday. Call Roberta. Check on test results. Okay? Tim says, Luke's in town for the summer. My next-action list says now, at the phone, call Luke, set up a time for lunch. Quentin says, our church website looks a bit dated. Now, I got to ask myself if that statement is going to mean anything to me or not. I want to think about it, though, and maybe I say, well, it's fine, but I don't want to give it my attention now, so it's done. Okay? I mean, that's possible. You don't have to act on everything. For heaven's sakes, we know that. But maybe I do. So now I have a new project. Hope Lutheran Church website redesign. The completed goal looks like a redesigned website. And my next actions are, at church, make a project file for website redesign. I'm actually going to make a folder and put it there for this stuff so I can start tracking this. And also, when I'm at church, brainstorm a project plan. That's how a project starts. What's it going to look like? And you see that these are physical, actual things that now I can do, so that the abstraction of our website looks tired becomes an actual something that you can act upon. That's kind of nice.

Altar guild, we quit. Project, new altar guild. Next action, at Hope Lutheran Church elders meeting, brainstorm new altar guild. On the calendar, Saturday, remember communion setup tomorrow. I'm not used to that. See? There are a lot of things I don't have to put on the calendar to remember, but I can actually put things on the calendar to remember them when I want to remember them, so that I don't have to remember them between now and then. That's nice. Off the mind. Next action, at computer, write letter accepting altar guild resignation. Boom.

Susan, I just read this great sermon from Swerla. Next action, at computer, read Swerla's sermon, recommended by Susan. More likely, it goes like this. Someday-maybe. Okay, at computer, read sermon, vice versa. There's a place for that. And I got it in there. Look, recommended by Susan. So if I do get around to it, I can shoot an email to Susan, say, hey, thanks for the recommendation. It wasn't as good as you thought. Whatever. Oh, boy.

New family, we're the Andersons, just moved to town. Next action, at phone. Call Andersons, and I'll make a note like this. Visited on Sunday, moved to town. Welcome them and try to schedule a visit. The next thing I can do. Christie, could I get a copy of your Bible study notes? Now, next action, at email, send Christie a copy of Bible study notes. Now, I don't need to do that today or tomorrow. I mean, it'd be nice to do it in the next three weeks sometime, but there's no emergency. I'm not gonna put it on my calendar, but I'm also not gonna forget. So now when I sit down and I'm at my email, I'm going to look at this list and say, oh, yeah, Christie wanted a copy of the notes, phew, no problem.

What does this one say up here? Oh, John says, I didn't get a chance to distribute the council minutes, and we should talk about usher training at our next meeting. What does that mean? At the calendar, tomorrow, at the office, ask the secretary to distribute council minutes. So tomorrow, I wake up and it's there. And then my next action, at the church council, talk about usher training. Now, this is moving from this abstraction to the clarity.

Look, we'll just run through this quick. Ruth, I love that last hymn to be at my funeral. Next action, at church, add "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" to Ruth's funeral file. Joanne, did God create the demons? Next action, email Joanne regarding, did God create the demons? And make a note of that, because that's somewhat timely. Bill, remember the New Year's Eve party? Remember, it's June. How in the world are you going to do that? I'm going to put on my calendar on December first, remember Bill's New Year's Eve party. He'll probably remind me every Sunday between now and then, but if he doesn't, I'll remember. Kim, I changed my phone number. At computer, change Kim's phone number. At church, change Kim's number in the directory and put an announcement in the bulletin, you know? Frank, I've got cancer. At the calendar today, call Frank, set up visit. At church, put Frank on the prayers. At church, print out a funeral plan for Frank. At my prayers, pray for Frank. Carrie says, we're out of ice, company's coming. Next, at errands, pick up bag of ice. And Jeff says, we should go to Israel. On my someday-maybe list, church trip to Israel. Now that actually is in the plans now. So, June 2015. So that's moved from someday-maybe to upcoming.

So that everything that you, every implication, every hint, every little item like this has a place to go. And now I'll tell you that when I sit down after church, after Bible class, and I jot all these notes down on my bulletin, and I sit down before I go home, and this is all done, I put it all on the list so that it's all there. And now, do you know what, dear brothers? I can go home. And I don't even have to try or think about remembering. Which is really, really nice. I was no good at remembering things. And now I don't have to remember anything at all.

This is true also for email. So the email comes. I have zero emails in my inbox. Well, I think I probably do now because I didn't check all day today, but so probably have, I don't know, 30 or so to get to, but this is the same thing with the email. You don't want it to be in your inbox because you don't want to have to ever look at anything twice. It's incredibly annoying and probably wasteful of our energy to have to go over something again. So, here's the email. Is it actionable? Does it mean anything? Is it for me? Is it involved in a project? Is there a time associated with it? And I can put it where it needs to go. Look at this. Here's proof. This is my email inbox. Wow, you've got a very clean inbox. Did you know that this is what it looks like, see, when you don't have any email? And then look, Hotmail, did you know you can receive messages from other email? It doesn't even know what to do with an empty email, so it wants me to get more from another email address. Oh, I don't want more. Okay.

But look, everything can go this way. Ideas, notes, conversations, jots, notes from reading, meetings, dreams, classes. There is no risk at all for capturing the idea because there is a place for everything. So, a sermon idea for Matthew 5, family vacation, moving from one down to another, elections, your parking ticket, garden, Christmas presents, a book about Lutheran devotional life, your will, going on a date, planning a conference, going to a conference, whatever it is. There's a place for all of this stuff, so you don't have to be afraid of all the input. It's quite nice. Quite nice.

Now, this doesn't mean that you don't have to do any work. You still have to. Just because you put it on the list doesn't mean you've done it. You still have to actually do it. But hopefully it's there for when you need to do it. And if you're tired, you go to the list and you look and say, well, I'm tired, this is that, but you've got a lot of energy, you go, and it's there, and you're cranking this stuff out.

But there are perhaps, and this is helpful to reflect on, there are three types of work. And I have them here as ad hoc, predefined, and predefining. So most of the work that we end up doing is ad hoc work. That means doing the work as it comes to you, putting out the fires, giving attention to the thing that is the most urgent. Even if the most urgent is not the most important, right? But there is a second kind of work, when you're in the zone, when you're working at your most furious pace. It's when you're doing work that you've already predefined. You've already done the work of clarifying what needs to be done. So now you can do, instead of think, you can do. Doing work that's been defined, working according to context, time, and energy, and with the big picture in mind. But to get to this point of doing predefined work, you have to predefine your work. And this is the work of thinking about work, which is what we just did. I've just showed it to you, of drilling down to the thing that is next. So to get to the point where you're able to do predefined work, you have to do the work of defining it.

Now, this is not true for everything. I don't put, for example, write sermon or prepare Bible class on any list at all. I mean, I know what needs to be done, and I don't have to think about it. It doesn't trouble me when I go to sleep at night. I know the process and how it works out. And so it doesn't go on any list. But say I thought that my preaching was getting stale or too repetitive or unfocused or something like this. And I did want to spend some time rethinking how I preach or how I approach a sermon. Now this becomes a project. Rethink preaching. Next action, call up Dr. Senkbeil to talk about preaching or whatever. So now, if you want to think about it or give your attention to it, you have a way to do this. So there's predefining work, which is essential. This is, in fact, the thing that I think we miss.

Now, here's one more thing, I think. And that is this. It does you no good to have a list if you don't look at your list. This took me a little while to learn. In fact, it seems like it's fantastically obvious. But if you have all of this stuff there, you have to review it. In other words, if I know that sometime in the next week, I'm going to look at the emails I have to send, then I'm not afraid to put the note down, email Christie Bible class notes. But if I know in the back of my head that I'm, in fact, never gonna look at that list, then I won't put it there. Or, if I do put it there, I won't trust it, and I'll try to hold it in my own mind, right? So this is one of the things that David Allen will introduce, and I think it's important, and that is, that you need a weekly review, which is a time that you set aside to make sure all your work is predefined and set.

So the weekly review looks something like this. You got to get clear, which is to collect all the papers, all the materials, empty your head, get all your inboxes to zero, get everything processed. Now, I schedule a weekly review on Monday morning from 8:30 to 10:30. It's not enough time for me. I need more, but that's the time that I have in the calendar, so that I know that if I don't get to it before then, I will at least get to everything by then. Then, you got to get current. Review your action lists, calendars, last week's calendar, look at your waiting-for list. Look over your projects, any checklist that you've made, look over all that sort of stuff. And then there's the opportunity to get creative, which is to look at your someday-maybe list. And to be creative and courageous here.

You know, all of us have wild ideas, and every idea started as a wild idea. But I think a lot of times those ideas simply get lost, just because we don't have the stuff in place to be able to handle them. We don't have the capacity to imagine a new idea because we just don't have a place to put it. So having all these places means that there's a place for this stuff. It's really been a great comfort to me because I would sit and imagine things. Just as an example, I imagined one time, I was looking at the baptismal certificates that we had for church, and I thought to myself, I'd like to have a certificate, a baptismal certificate, that would be beautiful, artful, et cetera, and that I could print myself, so that I could put in the words and everything else like this. And so I looked around the internet, and I couldn't find anything at all. I couldn't find anything like that. And so I forgot about it. That's, so no one else is doing it, so it's done, and it's just lost.

Well, I went through a couple of years kind of, I just couldn't imagine what that would be like. And then I read Getting Things Done and I put all the lists in place, and I had a little more capacity, and I remembered that, amazingly. I remembered that. You know, that still would be nice. So now it becomes a project. Printable baptismal certificate, you know? Who knows? And it went on a someday-maybe list. I was talking with a buddy of mine who does graphic design and I said, what would this take to do this for the church, you know, to design a baptismal certificate like that? And he says, and so that was really kind of trying to sneak it off of the someday-maybe list. And he says, oh, I don't know, about probably about six, $7000 worth of design work. So back it goes onto the someday-maybe list, you know? But it's there. And I kept seeing it come up. So I said, well, maybe, you know, who knows what this would be like. Maybe if I can get this guy to do it and he'll go as a partnership with me and everything like this. And the result is we made it. Wolfson Creative. Wolfson came out of that. Wolf. His name is Jason Hansen. And we thought Wolfson was a better combination of Wolfmueller and Hansen, than Hand-Mueller. Sounds like a motorcycle company or something. Ann-Mueller. So it was born out of that, because it was able to sit there and percolate for long enough, you know? It's kind of nice.

So that we have our weekly review, and we can do this, and we can know that we're there so that we have the mental space. I was talking to Todd Peperkorn, and he said that for him, the biggest thing was, he would be sitting there praying the Lord's Prayer with someone when he went to visit them, and he would think of something he had to do right in the middle of the Lord's Prayer. And it was so frustrating to him because he's like, duh. He wanted to stop praying the Lord's Prayer and write it down. He knew he'd forget it, but he didn't want to stop praying the Lord's Prayer because it's the Lord's Prayer. Dah! Does that happen to you? Your brain is so bad at this. I mean, if our brains worked properly, you would remember that you need batteries for the flashlight when you're at the store in front of the batteries and not when the lights go out at night, right? I mean, your brain is notorious for reminding you of things at precisely the wrong time. And you're standing there, consecrating the elements for the Lord's Supper, and you remember something you forgot to do last week, it's horrible. So that if we can do this, if we can get it, then it can free us up to actually be where we are.

I told you that I spent three days just dumping, right? I went back to that as an experiment about a year ago, and I listened to that same podcast. The same guided mind dump, I call it. And I wrote down three things. I mean, a year later, I wrote down three things. And then after I looked at them, I crossed them off because I already had them written down where I needed them. Oh, that's nice.

Okay. So a few next actions for you guys, and then we'll do questions, and maybe I'll talk about process, et cetera. I think we'll have loads of time. Go home and make a next-actions list. I mean, I did tell you, this saves your life. So you have a place. Just get a piece of paper and say, at computer, at phone, and just have a list there. It's handy. Okay? Next. This is kind of bossy. At church, schedule some time. You could put it on your calendar, or just when you're at church a couple times, and just write down everything you can possibly think of. All the things that you're supposed to do and get it off your mind. It's really wonderful. Because again, your mind is not trustworthy. At your computer, order a copy of this book, Getting Things Done. I'll buy it from you if it's not worth the money. On your calendar, put a schedule on your weekly calendar, a time, and put on the calendar for a weekly review to look over this stuff. To do it. And then if you have questions, there's my email address. You can do that there.

Now, there was a question, and I'll just talk for a couple minutes about this. How did I have the list? At first, I started with paper. In fact, I just had a number of note cards for each thing, so I'd have a phone call note card. I'd have an email note card. I'd have a computer note card. I had an errand note card, and it would just be there like this, and I just used that, no problem. It evolved from that into a piece of paper that I'd folded up, and I'd actually print it out on the computer and then change things around like this. I moved from that to, if you use Google Calendar, there's a task list in Google Calendar, and you can create different task lists. So they just give you a default list, but you can create extra task lists. So, if you want an email list or a computer list or a home list or whatever, you can actually create that in Google Tasks. And the nice thing about that, if you use Gmail, you can just send your email to your task list. So you make your native task list, your email task list, and you can make all your other ones there like that, so you can have your list that way.

I use now a program called doit.im. It's this Chinese program. Again, I don't know anyone else that uses it or has even heard of it. But I like to use that too. And so that's the way this thing goes. Although, it was good to start on paper, just to have the reality of having a paper. How many of you guys have paper calendars? Do you still use a paper calendar? Yeah. So just get your old paper calendar and just put some pages in the back with your list there so that it's always there.

Now, the nice thing about a paper list is that if a thing stays on your list for a week or two, you get really annoyed by it. Because you got all these things marked off, except for this one right here, and so it forces you back to that one. If you're on a computer list, then you hit the thing and it's gone. And so things can kind of sit on there and fester for a little bit longer. But the nice thing about a computer one is you can move it from one thing to another. So I can take an email, and when I send an email, I just move it right to my waiting-for list. So then I don't have to rewrite it or anything like that. Or, and this is why I moved eventually to the computer, is because I'd have on the list, call Joe, and I'd call Joe and leave a message. So I'd move it to my waiting-for, and then Joe would call me and leave a message, so I'd move it back to the calls, and then he, you know, would go back and forth, and this would get annoying. So now it's easy just to go back and forth, so I keep track of that stuff. Very good. That's what I got for you guys. Now…