Are you busy? Or maybe even addicted to being busy? Beating busyness is not easy, especially today.
As we interact with children’s ministry leaders, we are often confronted with the idea of busyness. There’s a lot to do in children’s ministry! In fact, we would say that the children’s ministry handles the most details, volunteers, and movement within a church’s ministry.
But we, the leaders of children’s ministry, should rarely find ourselves consumed with busyness. Of course, there are times when many things just must get done and we are overly busy. But these should be the exception, not the rule. And in our experience, it’s often the opposite.
When we are constantly busy, we are distracted from doing some of the most critical parts of ministry. We might miss out on:
- Having our ministry flow from our relationship with and dependency on God.
- Building relationships with the people around us.
- Equipping our teams for ministry and developing leaders.
- Spending time with our families and meeting their needs.
- Leading into the vision we have for our ministry.
But how do you beat busyness when it’s so easy to fall into?
When we are constantly busy, it distracts us from doing some of the most critical parts of ministry.
3 Practices to Help You Beat Busyness
1. Define what only you can do and do it.
First, it’s important that you don’t try to do everything. Because you can’t do everything! As the leader of your ministry, it should become the norm for you to focus on what only you can do in your day to day.
And, usually, the larger the church you work in, the truer this should be! No matter what, it’s important to focus on the things only you can do no matter what size church you work in.
Prayerfully consider what only you can do. Here are some ideas to help you make this a reality:
- Schedule time to do your work. Wherever and whenever you work best, put this time in your calendar and do everything you can to keep it from being interrupted.
- Stop multi-tasking as a habit. Work to narrow your focus in order to produce greater productivity.
- Choose a task management system and stick to it. There are many available, but the important thing is finding one that works best for you.
And if you’re feeling stuck, you can get back on track.
How to Get Heard and Supported by Your Church Leadership
How to Get Heard and Supported by Your Church Leadership
How to Get Heard and Supported by Your Church Leadership
2. Identify what’s important but can be done by others and delegate.
You can’t do everything, but there are still going to be important things to do aside from what only you can do.
Here are some ideas for how to identify these things and manage them as you beat busyness:
- Ask “What needs to be done that’s important?” Make a list.
- Next, ask “Who can help get this done?” This list will likely include more than one person.
- Ask “How can I support my team in this task?” You may need to connect people together, provide necessary outside resources, or take the time to individually equip each person.
- Ask “When should this be completed?” It’ll be important to have a system of accountability to ensure you follow up. It could be as simple as a calendar reminder or utilizing the task management system you chose.
Always make sure you are available to your team if they need you but give them the space to do things their own way!
3. Eliminate and forget about tasks you shouldn’t be worrying about.
The reality is that more will need to get done outside of what only you can do and what you’ve already decided is important enough to delegate. We’re not saying to ignore these things, but we are saying to prioritize and manage how and when you focus on them.
It should become the norm for you to focus on what only you can do in your day to day.
There will be some items that you can (and should) eliminate altogether. And there will be other items that other people would be happy to take on.
We encourage you to:
- Review how you spend your time, look at your to-do list, and eliminate those things that are less of a priority.
- Create a list of things that you should completely hand off.
When you’ve done these things to beat busyness, circle back to number one.
Most of us have a tendency to continue taking on things that we don’t need to take on, which is how we get back to the unwanted state of busyness all over again. And this is something that takes practice! It’s important to continually review what we have on our lists to see where things should fall.
This practice will help you focus on what matters most! Always start with time with Jesus.
And when you beat busyness like this, you will be amazed at how much more you get done and how much more effective you are as a leader.
