One of the main principles we teach at Impact 360 is leadership, which isn’t just about getting things done for the sake of getting things done. It’s about becoming the kind of Christ centered leader who influences culture with purpose and clarity.
A key leadership skill is maximizing your time and attention toward the best possible results. In other words, we want to seek to increase our productivity. Productivity, as defined here, is the measure of how effectively you use your time, energy, and resources to create meaningful results. Scripture reminds us that “God is not a God of disorder but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33).
Productivity isn’t about squeezing more into your day. It’s learning to manage time as a gift from God, aligning your daily choices with the bigger calling He has placed on your life.
Here are 3 practical rules to help you grow in focus, discipline, and impact.
- Calendar Time to Manage Your Calendar.
- In my experience most people live at the mercy of whatever shows up on their schedule or in their inbox. The result of this is a cycle of perpetual reactiveness. It leads to the feeling you can never get ahead of things and robs you of the time you need to focus on important work.
- The best leaders learn to be intentional. We must treat our calendars not as a record of where our time is going, instead, see it as a tool to direct where your time should go.
- TIP: To begin to get ahead of this, begin to place on your calendar weekly planning time to review upcoming responsibilities, deadlines, and tasks. From there begin to reverse-engineer your calendar and proactively block time in the coming weeks for these things. You should see some immediate benefit; however, it is the ongoing practice of this which will allow you to begin to work weeks and months ahead of critical deadlines and ensuring you have the right amount of time dedicated toward them already marked off on your calendar.
- Don’t Be Ruled by Your Inbox.
- In leadership, daily distraction is one of the biggest enemies of productivity. Emails, texts, DMs, and notifications constantly threaten to break focus and react to everyone else’s priorities. Strong leaders won’t let the urgent crowd out the important. Having time dedicated toward your priorities from Step 1 helps set you up for success in this.
- TIP: Use your focus time for a true, deep focus on your most important work by seeking to incorporate these practices:
- Check messages during set times, not constantly.
- Keep notifications off when you’re doing meaningful work.
- Use your best brain hours for your best tasks, not reacting to emails, DMs, texts, and such.
- As needed, communicate expectations so others know when you’ll reply
- Jesus modeled intentional withdrawal from the demands around Him (Luke 5:16). He wasn’t controlled by interruptions; He responded from clarity and purpose. You can do the same by refusing to let your inbox dictate your leadership.
- Set Focus Time on Your Calendar and Batch Work When You’re at Your Best.
- God designed each of us with unique rhythms. There are certain times of day when you’re most alert and creative. Pay attention to those patterns in your life and seek to schedule your most critical and important work during your strongest hours.
- TIP: Two best practice habits can help you with this:
- Focus Blocks: Uninterrupted time with silenced notifications, closed inbox, and commitment to one important task.
- Batching Work: Grouping similar tasks together (answering email, assignments, reading, planning). This improves your focus on these as your brain doesn’t continually have to switch contexts.
As stated above, productivity is not about doing more; it’s about proactively adjusting your habits for your best work. Seek to take ownership of your time, set healthy boundaries, and work from your rhythms. The result will be that you will lead with greater clarity and purpose toward the glory of God.