Time Bandits
Steven McKinley
Others may assign us tasks and make demands on us, but we control our own time.
— Steven McKinley Everybody wastes some time. And everybody thinks wasting time is a bad thing. But what is wasted time? In their book Manage Your Time, Manage Your Work, Manage Yourself, Merrill E. Douglass and Donna N. Douglass say, "You waste your time whenever you spend it on something less important when you could be spending it on something more important. Importance is determined by measuring your activities against your objectives." When we measure the way we actually spend our time with our objectives, it usually becomes clear that we are wasting time. We just don't get done everything we expect, reasonably so, to get done in a week. When that happens week after week, that's frustrating. So how does one go about trimming wasted time? I start with this assumption: we are in control of our own time. No one else controls it for us. Others may assign us tasks and make demands on us, but we control our own time. I'm not aware of any pastors who punch time clocks or who work under supervisors who rigidly order their days. Instead, we pastors have a great deal of freedom to structure our own time. That means other people cannot waste our time for us. We waste our own time, sometimes by handing it over to others to spend (or waste) however they please! Getting control of our waste time means getting control of ourselves. In this chapter, we will look at some of the time-wasters that torment pastors, and some ways I deal with those time-wasters. Disorganization
My friend Jim is one of the most harried people I know. He often complains about his heavy work load and his inability to keep up with others' demands. Recently I visited with Jim in his office ...
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