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Make Decisions with the Eisenhower Matrix

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Make Decisions with the Eisenhower Matrix



Somewhere along the way, my three worlds—personal, professional and organizational—became saturated with activity. More responsibility, more worthwhile tasks and more can’t-miss family moments mean that decisions about what to do and when to do it are more important than ever.

A productive life doesn’t happen by accident. You don’t stumble upon great personal choices, plans, priorities and goals. One of the most important lessons about personal productivity is that you have to spend intentional time planning your daily and weekly schedule.

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower said it this way:

I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.

That statement is at the heart of the Eisenhower Matrix, a method for making consistently good decisions about time and your agenda.

I set aside my first hour on Monday morning to plan and prioritize the coming week. It’s my planned weekly time to make decisions about important, unimportant, urgent and not urgent tasks.

Here’s how it works. In what is now called the Eisenhower Decision Principle, tasks are evaluated and sorted using important-unimportant and urgent-not urgent criteria. Those tasks are then placed in one of four quadrants in the Eisenhower Box or Matrix.

You may do this intuitively but consider placing daily and weekly tasks in the proper perspective.  Sort important-unimportant and urgent-not urgent tasks to make good decisions about your schedule:

  • Know what to DO now. What IMPORTANT/URGENT things should be done immediately and personally? This includes time-sensitive items that have a deadline or problems and crises needing immediate attention. These are things that require your personal attention or presence and can’t be done by anyone else.
  • Know what to SCHEDULE later. What IMPORTANT/NOT URGENT things should be scheduled? This includes important tasks that may not have a target date or time limit. But since these things are still very important, you need to intentionally plug them in to your personal schedule. You might need to schedule things like strategic planning, relationships, goal setting or other significant tasks you can never seem to make time for.
  • Know what to DELEGATE to someone else. What UNIMPORTANT/URGENT things should be delegated? This includes routine items that can be done by someone else. These things don’t require your presence and that makes them a prime candidate for delegation. Ask yourself the question: Who can do it for me? You might need to delegate tasks like routine administration, scheduling, meetings and activities. If it doesn’t require your personal touch, then delegate it.
  • Know what to DELETE. What UNIMPORTANT/NOT URGENT things should be dropped? This includes everything we can live without in our personal, professional and organizational worlds. These are things that we can drop or eliminate from our routine to make room for more productive tasks. Examples include time wasters, low priority items, entertainment or anything else we can do without.

So what’s the Big Idea?

One of the most important lessons about personal productivity is that you have to spend intentional time planning your daily and weekly schedule. Know what to do now, what to schedule later, what to delegate to someone else and what to delete. Make better decisions with the Eisenhower Matrix.

Resources


Source

“Time Management,” Accessed April 23, 2015, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management.

3 Ways to Measure Church Health

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3 Ways to Measure Church Health



We have long measured outward signs of church health. They tell the story of needs met, people reached and lives changed. But do traditional measures of health tell the most important parts of that story?

Most churches measure the usual things and count them as measures of success or failure. While that can be a useful exercise, there’s more to church health than attendance and money. Andy Stanley and the North Point team say it this way:

Too many church leaders have bought into the myth that to clarify the win means establishing attendance goals and raising a lot of money. These can certainly be indicators about the health of your organization, but strong numbers in these areas do not necessarily mean you are winning.

Consider how you know your church is winning. Healthy churches are known for their worship and their witness.  They are purposeful places of discipleship, ministry, evangelism and missions. They are Great Commission and Great Commandment places of authentic Christian fellowship and community.

The key is knowing with certainty whether or not those words accurately describe your church. You may intuitively know the answer based on experience and anecdotal evidence, but dig deeper to build an evenhanded picture of church health.

Consider 3 ways to measure church health objectively:

  1. Research who you are and where you’ve been. Research helps you know precisely where your church is at this moment. It helps you answer important questions about the people who populate your church (and the ones who don’t). Compile data and gather information on the journey your church has traveled and where it is right now. Map the trend lines over a period of several years so you can visualize areas of strength and areas of opportunity. Read more
  2. Ask the right questions. Analyzing the data you’ve gathered may take some time and effort. It may also require a brainstorming session of your ministry staff team and other church leaders. Pray over the results of your research. Examine the numerical data closely and stay true to what it tells you about your current situation.
    • Ask “why” and “how” questions. Read more
    • Don’t stop asking questions. Read more
    • Consider the sample questions below.
  3. Consider past and present definitions of success. Focus on outputs vs. inputs. Inputs tell you what ingredients go in to something. Outputs tell you what comes out on the other side. Move beyond simple input measures to the more significant outcomes you’re aiming for. Find ways to measure success quantitatively. While qualitative measures are subjective and experiential, quantitative measures, or metrics, are objective and numerical. In most cases, quantitative measures are the best way to measure outcomes without bias. Read more

So what’s the Big Idea?

Research who you are and where you’ve been. Ask the right questions about the information you gather. And consider past and present definitions of success. That’s the way to take an unbiased, evenhanded snapshot of church health.

Resources

Ask the Right Questions

  • What does the raw data tell you about your church?
  • Is your church growing, plateaued or declining?
  • Are you reaching unchurched people in your community?
  • Does the church reflect its community? (race, age and more)
  • How many church members did it take to baptize one person?
  • Does this number seem unreasonably high?
  • Are you reproducing disciple-making disciples?
  • Does the church show signs of spiritual health?
  • What are age division attendance patterns in small groups?
  • What growth opportunities exist in those patterns?
  • Is morning worship attendance advancing or declining?


Source

Andy Stanley, Reggie Joiner and Lane Jones, 7 Practices of Effective Ministry (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2004), 71.

Shift Gears from Good to Great

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Shift Gears from Good to Great



There have been too many seasons in my life when I settled for the good at the expense of the great. It’s happened when I was too comfortable with life, my job and my organization, and the result has been something far less than what I’m capable of. In those moments, a lack of self-discipline and the absence of a personal growth plan created conditions where ruts and bad habits flourished.

Several years ago, I struggled with a prolonged period of complacency. Soon after the completion of a major project at work, and despite my best efforts to avoid it, I rested on the laurels of past success. Partly the result of burnout and partly due to a letdown from the “high” of a great accomplishment, good-enough work took the place of really great work.

It didn’t happen suddenly. Instead, a series of small compromises gave way to a habit of mediocrity. The difference between good and great was so slight that many didn’t even notice the change. For some friends and team members, good-enough living has always been standard operating procedure. These folks were satisfied with less effort and vision, and a lesser result.

After two years of vapid work, it dawned on me that I couldn’t go on this way. When the great is within reach and possible, the good just isn’t good enough.

Recognize that habits can progress in both good and bad directions. When you make future-focused choices, you build growth habits that lead to breakthrough results. When you make comfortable choices, you tend to reinforce habits that lead to apathy, complacency and mediocrity.

So how do we combat the slide toward good-enough living? Jim Collins wrote that:

Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.

The simple answer is that great living starts with a decision to live intentionally. Make the decision to shift gears from good to great in every area of your life:

  • Spiritually – Glorify God in everything you do.
  • Financially – Save for your future and eschew materialism.
  • Intellectually – Learn something new every day.
  • Physically – Exercise your mind and body regularly.
  • Personally – Set personal goals daily and weekly.
  • Professionally – Grow in your professional skills and knowledge.
  • Organizationally – Give your best work every day.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Don’t settle for the good at the expense of the great. Make the decision to shift gears from good to great in every area of your life.

Resources

Use Medium-Term Goals to Stay on Target

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Use Medium-Term Goals to Stay on Target



Medium- term goals are a natural extension of weekly goals, details and to-do lists. They are the incremental checkpoints that have to be reached on the way to annual goals and objectives.

Let’s define the duration of goals this way:

  • Short-Term – 30 days or less
  • Medium-Term – 2 to 11 months
  • Long-Term – 12 months or more

We often associate goal-setting with annual goals—the type of goals typically set as a part of performance review processes. But while annual goals are important, they aren’t very effective as standalone objectives. In fact, recent evidence confirms that goal-setting should happen more frequently than once a year:

The traditional once-a-year setting of employee goals and performance review is totally out of date,” says Kris Duggan [co-founder of Silicon Valley startup firm BetterWorks]. “To really improve performance, goals need to be set more frequently, be more transparent to the rest of the company, and progress towards them measured more often.

Consider 3 ways that medium-term goals help you stay on target:

  1. Medium-term goals bridge short-term and long-term goals. While short-term goals form your daily and weekly nuts-and-bolts task list, you need bridge goals to steer you toward your long-term objectives. Medium-term goals fit the bill, providing a progress report at set times throughout the year.
  2. Medium-term goals are a natural time to make adjustments. If there’s a problem with your “big picture” plan, you’re more likely to discover it as you set and evaluate medium-term goals. Intermediate goals help you adapt to changing conditions and, if necessary, adjust the long-term objective.
  3. Medium-term goals focus on quarterly results. A study of big companies by consulting firm Deloitte found that: “Those which set quarterly goals are nearly four times more likely to be in the top quartile of performers.” It pays to set incremental checkpoints as you strive toward annual goals and objectives.

Quarterly and semi-annual goals can be applied in your personal, professional and organizational worlds. Whatever the area of your life, apply medium-term goals to stay on target:

  • Personally – Family, self-improvement and life development goals
  • Professionally – Career, work and leadership development goals
  • Organizationally – Business or ministry vision, values and OGSM-driven goals

So what’s the Big Idea?

It pays to set medium-term goals, especially quarterly and semi-annual ones. They bridge short-term and long-term goals and provide incremental checkpoints to make adjustments as you strive toward annual goals and objectives.

Resources


Source

“The Quantified Serf” (Schumpeter), The Economist (March 7, 2015), 70.

From Self-Reliance to God-Reliance

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From Self-Reliance to God-Reliance



Think about the ways that being independent gets sewn into your life. It happens in school from the first day you go to Kindergarten. It happens in business as you learn to promote yourself and advance your career. It happens as you move away from home and take responsibility for things your parents used to do for you.

But after all those lessons in becoming independent, you have to live in the opposite direction. For most of us, the first big lesson happens in marriage. We discover the limits of self-reliance and the beauty of a collaborative, loving relationship with someone else.

But the greatest lesson in dependent living is the one we learn as a child of God. Jesus said:

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. – John 15:5 (NIV)

Abiding in Christ means that you depend on Him in every corner of your life. That happens most readily through prayer. Bill Hybels said it this way:

From birth we have been learning the rules of self-reliance as we strain and struggle to achieve self-sufficiency. Prayer flies in the face of those deep-seated values. It is an assault on human autonomy, an indictment of independent living. To people in the fast lane, determined to make it on their own, prayer is an embarrassing interruption.

Interruption or not, prayer is the indispensable ingredient in any relationship with a communicating God. Without it, the faith relationship breaks down and your independence asserts itself once more. To break the chains of self-reliance and self-sufficiency:

  1. Start your day with prayer. Confess your sins before God and commit to an attitude of worship and Spirit-sensitivity throughout the day. Taking that simple step at the start helps build a supernatural perspective for the daily grind.
  2. Live with God-reliance vs. self-reliance. Approach your daily routine with healthy skepticism about old habits and tendencies. Ask key questions to keep the proper perspective for living a life on mission for God. Pray short prayers throughout the day, asking God to help in both the big and small things.
  3. Consider the source of every decision you make. Are you making decisions with human wisdom, knowledge and motivation, or is a supernatural God transforming and directing your life? Remember that prayer and meditation is not an interruption, it’s at the heart of your relationship with a communicating God.
  4. Acknowledge your inadequacy at every turn. Demonstrate humility and servant leadership, remembering that God is holy and you are not. Believers are not meant to operate independently from the sustaining presence of their God. Your humble words and actions make that task a lot easier.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Live with God-reliance vs. self-reliance in every aspect of your life. The key is regular communication with God in the big and small things of life. That unnatural activity pushes self-reliance to the side and leads you to embrace total dependence on an eternally faithful God.

Resources


Source

Bill Hybels, Too Busy Not to Pray: Slowing Down to Be with God (10th Anniversary Edition, Revised and Expanded), 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 9.

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