Managing Your Time for Higher Levels of Living (Part 2)

In last week’s first part of this series, we started a discussion on time management. As pastors, there’s no way to fulfill the purposes God has for us unless we steward our time wisely. I shared my first bit of advice on managing your time wisely, which you can read here.

Here’s another immensely helpful tip:

Adopt an Off-Peak Lifestyle

For everything you do in life, there’s a peak time to do it — a time that requires more time, effort and energy — and an offpeak time. Choose to operate in the off-peak. As a pastor, you have flexibility built into your schedule that most of the working world does not. When it comes to life’s routine demands (going to the bank, the dry cleaners, the DMV, the grocery store, and the like), you don’t have to keep the same schedule as the rest of the working world. You can take care of these necessities at off-peak times and therefore do them much more quickly. Take a look at these four classic examples:

  1. Retaurants: What time is the lunch rush in your area? Find out and then plan your own lunchtime around it. By doing so, you can avoid sitting in traffic, having to wait for a table, and dealing with slower service — which gives you more time in your afternoon to do what you need to get done.
  2. Grocery Stores: The busiest time to go to the grocery store is right after work. Everyone is stopping by to pick up something for dinner — which means you shouldn’t. Don’t waste time fighting crowds and standing in long lines if you have the flexibility to run by at a slower time of the day.

Tune in next week for the next two examples of off-peak living.

Click here to read Part 1 of this series.

Your partner in ministry,

Nelson

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About Nelson Searcy

Nelson Searcy is an experienced church growth strategist, pastor, church planter and coach, consulting with churches around the world. As founder of Church Leader Insights and the Renegade Pastors Network, he has personally trained more than 3,500 church leaders in over 45 denominations through live events, seminars and monthly coaching. Nelson is also the Founding and Lead Pastor of The Journey Church, with locations across New York City and in Boca Raton, FL. Nelson and his church routinely appear on lists such as “The 50 Most Influential Churches” and “The 25 Most Innovative Leaders.” He is the author of over 100 church growth resources and 18+ books, including The Renegade Pastor: Abandoning Average in Your Life, Ministry and The Difference Maker: Using Your Everyday Life for Eternal Impact, and At the Cross with the People Who Were There. He and his wife, Kelley, have one son, Alexander.

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