Thinking about leadership this week, and how a strong youth worker must always concentrate on top-level priorities while still managing day-to-day operations of a youth ministry. Here’s a few things on my mind on the subject this morning:

Create time blocks for priorities
Think about 21 segments – dividing up your week into segments that can be directed into productivity. Take a look at your work week and force yourself to think high-level instead of the management of the mundane.

Turn off the inbox
Email is a distraction from your focus on multiple top priorities. Twitter isn’t helping, texting is an interruption. Facebook chat, while totally awesome, is further pulling you away from effective leadership. Turning stuff off during certain periods of the day will help you focus on what is most important. Give it a shot, I guarantee it’ll be much harder than you think.

Learn how to pop in and out
Sometimes you have to come late to a meeting. Sometimes you have to just see the second half of the game with the guys. Meetings can dominate your work week, and meeting after meeting doesn’t allow you to get things done. If possible, pop in and pop out. If it’s not possible, try to bunch meetings together in a block so you can do a “meeting day” then get back to real work. And if that’s not possible, surrender to your office culture and give up. Just kidding … you must learn how to contribute efficiently to be effective.

Work when you’re at work
As much as I love to play and be a general distraction to people in our office environment, sometimes you just need to put your head down and crank. I’m sitting in a Tully’s right now, about to dive into hour 8 of this particular sermon preparation. The office would be a distraction for me (though blogging is also quite a distraction – ha!) so I cleared a block of time, said “no” to some other top priorities and turned off email. I’m ready to work.

Become a master delegator
Delegator is not a real word. Spell check is freaking out right now. It is a word apparently I’ve just invented or is late being added to the dictionary. Either way, work hard on delegating what you must to focus on multiple top priorities. If you don’t become a master delegator, you will be a master dollutor. Hmmm … that’s also not a word. I don’t like bloggers who invent words, and I just became one. I need to make blogging better a top priority.

JG