Energy Burst

Leadership Straight from Bill Hybels Energy Burst I always look at a week in terms of a start time and an end time of a work day. I do not look at 24 hour periods of time because I do not think God wants us to work 24 hours. I think there is a time to work and a time to stop working. I mean really stop working. I get a start time and an end time. I think you have to really know when that end time should be and end when you say your end time is and celebrate it with a ritual. The only way that you will stick to an end time in a fired-up church situation is to reward yourself with a meaningful ritual when you end on time. For 20 years, my ritual was walking out at a certain time, meeting my running partner, running for 45 minutes, taking a shower, then I was done. That is enough work for today. No more. I can engage my family and friends. That has changed for many reasons. Now my end time is a little later. But my wife and I have a date thing. We watch the network news, which is a big thing in the USA, 30 minute broadcast on a major network. That is our ritual. She is done working for her day. I am done working for my day. We meet at 5:30. We are done. Then we have dinner after that. It is a nice, pleasant ritual. Every time it is 5:30 somewhere in the world and I am not watching the network news with my wife I miss it. It is a meaningful way... It gets me home on time. A big change I made a few years ago because I started teaching twice as much... I used to teach 18 weekends a year. I am teaching 35 weekends a year now. I used to be the first person on the church property. I am not anymore. I get up early at 6 am. I work from 6 - 11 am on message prep each day of the week. I do not go into the office. I work from an office in my house. And that firewall here has given me the head space and reading time needed to up my teaching quality even though I am teaching more. I had to create more space to be with God, to read good stuff, to listen to good stuff. This is a radical change. People who know me well still cannot believe I am sticking with it. But I am. When I get to the church, I have energy bursts as I talk about in my book Axiom. I do not just meet with some people. I think, "What do I need to move ahead today?" I do not do meetings for someone can check in with me. You can check in with me via email. I do not need to meet with you for you to check in with me. Just send me an email. I am good. Great. It saves me a meeting. The question is in these afternoon 30 or 60 or 90 minute time blocks I call them energy bursts. Each afternoon between now and 5 pm when I go home I have to be a part. I have to energize initiatives or movements that we are trying to push up field. If that is a capital campaign, if it is doubling the number of people in Alpha, if it is sorting out a complication in human resources, I throw 60 minutes... I refuse to do meetings if we are not moving something ahead. Leaders know. Your biggest asset is not time. It is energy. Everyone has the same amount of time. It is energy that moves people, initiatives, and programs ahead. I am very fussy about which offices I walk into and which meetings are held in my office because I only want to be part of meetings that are moving important stuff dramatically ahead. Every other thing just do by email. Just check in. Do not let people waste your time. If you are going to do a lot of sermon prep, you only have a certain number of hours. They all have to count. I do that until 5 pm. Then I go home and watch the news with my wife. This has changed so many times during eras of my life when I was teaching less, had more meetings and travel messes with that some.