I made two decisions this morning right at the start of my day that are going to save me four hours a week, as a conservative average, for the rest of the year. To me that’s just amazing. When I figured out what those two decisions were going to do in my life, the decisions actually became a little bit easier.
Now, the first decision I made was about the YouTube video I’ve been producing once a week for our 12Church. It’s a foundational bit of teaching and leadership level stuff, which I think are important. We’ve got some good and very important videos out there talking about discipleship versus disciple making, and some of those basic disciple making principles. It takes me about about four hours a week to do that.
I do have some of the editing outsourced, but I still do a little bit myself. If I spent the money to outsource more, of course I could save some more time. On average it’s about four hours a week between preparing the script, recording it and then getting it to my outsourced, and the finishing the edit.
I made a decision that for a while I’m going to stick to producing these videos on the second and fourth week of the month, instead of weekly. That will eliminate producing around two or three each month and averaged out, I will save four hours any week I’m not doing that.
The other decision I made was actually harder because I’ve been invited to join a coaching cohort related to disciple making. This cohort would require a two hour call every two weeks, as well as some other content and interaction around that and I figured it would be about two hours a week.
I was really quite positive about it and I really wanted to take it, but I looked at the numbers and all that I’m involved in right now with 12Church, helping out a church in a transition, as well as working with other transitional pastors. I realized I can’t lock down another evening every week, as well as all that would be required to fully participate in this coaching court, so I decided not to do that now.
So conservatively that frees up or saves four hours a week for the rest of the year. In a year, that is 208 hours, which is five work weeks. Now I’m recording this at the start of February, so I haven’t saved the time yet, but I’m starting to save it as of literally next week. So I by making those two decisions, I’ve freed up the equivalent of four work weeks. To me that’s just mind boggling how a little decision like that can free up or fill up that much time. And again, some things we should be doing, and I really would like to get into that coaching cohort at some point, but for now it just made sense and it freed up all that time.
So maybe it’s a good reflection question for the day for anyone reading this; what simple decision can you make that will immediately eliminate something that shows up regularly in your schedule and will free up a massive amount of time through the year. Now, the trick of course is to then use that time wisely and strategically. Maybe some of that strategic use is rest, learning a new skill or working on a project you’ve been putting off, but there’s probably something you can do with that time.
So there, we have a couple decisions save me four hours a week. What decision can you make today that will save a lot of time through the year ahead?
God bless and press on.
