In the “good old days”, when William Carey needed to talk to the British Missionary Society, or if they wanted to talk to him, it would take about 8-12 months to send and receive correspondence. Letters had to be carried overland and then slowly shipped by boat around the world. The result was that missionaries spent little to no time in correspondence and reporting.
Over time, the pace of communication has changed. When I first moved to the field, I had never owned a smartphone. Email and Skype were the normal means we used to communicate. If we wanted to set up a Skype call, it meant emailing back and forth to arrange a suitable time.
In contrast, today, most missionaries are highly connected through various messaging and social media apps, allowing them to reach the whole world. One result of this connectivity is that missionaries feel busier than ever. Many missionaries wake up each morning to an inbox full of messages and emails from people on the other side of the planet. As the world has shrunk and connectivity has increased, missionaries find themselves spending more and more time in front of their computers or on smartphones.
Sometimes, I wonder if the productivity of missionaries would vastly improve if we took away their smartphones! But then again, in today’s world, everything is connected by smartphones.
Therefore, missionaries today need to develop better practices in time management and their relationships with their devices. To that end, here are seven time management tools and techniques for busy missionaries.
#1. No Phone Before Bible Principle. The first principle is simple. Missionaries should consider a life practice of never looking at their phones or computers before spending time with the Lord in Word and prayer. Beginning our days by looking at our devices instead of centering ourselves in Jesus is a bad pattern. For many, this pattern will erode their spiritual lives, ultimately sapping their spiritual vitality.
Challenge: For the next 7 days, spend time in the Word and prayer before looking at your devices.
#2. Take An Hour a Day Device Free. Once, I took a two-week vacation without any devices. It was my children’s favorite vacation. I am convinced it was because I was present with them without my devices. My mind and soul cleared tremendously during that vacation. In my everyday life, I am often healthiest when I take an hour a day without my devices. I leave them on my desk and go and engage my wife and kids. Just an hour a day breaks the addiction if we practice this regularly. The best time for me is in the evening when my kids are home from school.
Challenge: For the next 7 days, force yourself to go an hour a day without your phone. Just engage during that time with your family, the Lord, and yourself.
#3. The Urgent-Important Matrix. The Urgent-Important Matrix (below) is most famous from Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of a Highly Effective Person. From this matrix, we see a few common errors in most people’s lives. First, most are ruled by “the tyranny of the urgent.” The tyranny of the urgent means that people spend all their time and energy working on tasks and issues that are pressing on them in the moment. In such a case, a person loses control of their life and the ability to focus on anything strategic. Second, many people waste their time on those things that are not important, to the neglect of the important.
Instead, this matrix challenges us to focus on those tasks that are “Not Urgent” and “Important,” i.e., Quadrant 2. If we focus on Quadrant 1 activities, we are always in crisis management mode, putting out fires, which leads to stress and burnout. If we focus on Quadrant 3 activities, we have a short-term focus and fail to accomplish bigger tasks. The result is that our ministry feels shallow, and we feel our lives are out of control. A focus on Quadrant 4 is simply a life of irresponsibility. Quadrant 4 might be someone who plays too many video games, debates on X, or is constantly scrolling social media.
In contrast, focusing on Quadrant 2 allows a person to pursue a greater vision and have control of their life. So, the question is, “How do we spend more of our lives in Quadrant 2 and less of our lives in the other quadrants?” The first step is to recognize that we want to spend more time in Quadrant 2 and decide to do what is necessary to get there. The second step is to develop the time management skills required to do so.
Challenge: Take an inventory of your life. What are the Quadrant 2 activities you are supposed to spend your time on? Examples are language learning, evangelism, discipleship, training others, developing media projects, working on strategic projects, and preparing to teach. So, how much of your time are you focusing on these big picture tasks that will get you to your vision? And how much of your time are you in the tyranny of the urgent, or spending your time on things that are not important?
#4. The 80/20 Principle. The 80/20 Principle is simply that activities that take up 20% of your time have 80% of the output in your life. So, this principle asks, “What are the highest value activities you should dedicate yourself to?” Then the 80/20 Principle challenges us to create more space to pursue those high-value activities. In other words, the 80/20 Principle is just one more way of saying, “Live in Quadrant 2!” However, even within Quadrant 2, there are more and less effective tasks. For example, is it usually better to spend time in evangelism, working with seekers, or discipling new believers? All three of these are Quadrant 2 activities. However, I believe that discipling new believers is the highest value of these three, followed by working with seekers, and then finally evangelizing new contacts. Why? New disciples are a more effective means of sharing the gospel with others. Likewise, in South Asia, it is generally more efficient to develop and train South Asians to do ministry work than to have foreigners do it directly. Now, the foreigners need to do the work as well, but their time spent in training and developing others is more efficient and effective in the long run. Just as Paul poured into Timothy and Titus, so should we develop others to do the work!
Challenge: What are the highest value activities that you should be pursuing? Within Quadrant 2, what are your highest value tasks? Are you prioritizing them appropriately?
#5. Do Deep Work. Deep work contrasts with shallow work. Shallow work is work that you can do while distracted, like answer emails and text messages, answer requests from your children and family, or other similar distractions. The problem is that many people are so accustomed to shallow work that they always try to multitask with everything, which prohibits appropriate deep work. Deep work is that which is challenging to do well while distracted, such as language learning, developing a discipleship curriculum, or even just practicing spiritual disciplines. These tasks are best undertaken with our full focus.
Challenge: What are the deep work tasks that you should spend more time focusing on? Determine what they are, then time box to prioritize them.
#6. Time Boxing. Time boxing means making blocks of time in your schedule and boxing them off for tasks, especially for things like ministry (evangelism, discipleship, trainings), deep work, and other vital tasks. Time boxing sets those things into our calendars to help us focus on Quadrant 2 activities. Everything else must then be arranged around these high-value tasks, which have been previously placed in our calendars.
Challenge: Create a system for time boxing and implement it for the next two weeks. What are the vital tasks you need to undertake? Box off ministry time and then do not let other tasks or meetings infringe on ministry. Box off time for deep work and do the same. Try it out for two weeks and see if you make progress.
#7. The Sabbath Principle. God delights to give rest to those He loves. While we are not under any burden that we must take a sabbath to be right with God, the Sabbath is a gift that God desires to give His children. My advice is to set a weekly sabbath as a family, inform your teammates of your Sabbath, and do your best not to deviate from it. Of course, there will be urgent ministry things that occasionally come up that require your attention, but that should be the exception rather than the norm. Many people spend their entire Sabbath away from their cell phones and laptops, which, in my opinion, could double the effectiveness of a Sabbath day for rest and rejuvenation.
Challenge: What is your sabbath day? How well are you protecting that time? Would your Sabbath be more productive if you spent it away from your device?
No Cousins Left 