…Manage your calendar. Managing time is impossible! I’ve never been able to add an extra second to a minute or an extra minute to an hour. However, my goal in managing my calendar was said best in this anonymous quote:

“What counts is not the number of hours you put in, but how much you put in the hours.”

In fairness to this topic, I could not condense it into one blog entry (at least not one blog entry that you would be willing to read. It would be too long!) So, I’ve decided to start a short series on this topic that may last a few weeks. After all, I currently only post one article a week!

The question for every leader is not, will my calendar be full? Of course it will be full! The real question is, who will fill my calendar? And what will it be filled with?

When you are in ministry, there are endless wonderful ideas we could be doing. Once we implement one idea, another needs to be implemented. That’s what is great about ministry! But it can be overwhelming. Have you ever said, “so much to do, so little time”? I have. If I am going to maximize my effectiveness in ministry, then I need to make the best use of my calendar.

I’ve worked hard to maximize my time as I manage my calendar and tasks. What you will see in this series is some best practices that work for me. They may not all work for you, and that’s fine. But I hope some of these ideas can get you started in managing your calendar more effectively.

• Put all your events in the calendar
  Sounds like a no-brainer, right? But I can only manage my calendar well if I actually use a calendar. I learned to use a calendar when I was in college. But using a calendar was never something someone taught me to do. I just figured I needed to use one. Then I taught myself. So, use a calendar! It can be on a phone, iPad, computer, paper calendar. Whatever works for you. (My calendar is digital.)

• Create a task list each month
  On the last day of the month, I spend at least one hour looking at my calendar for the next month and planning the tasks I need to get done. I’ve written about this before when I wrote about my Simple Monthly Disciplines, so I won’t repeat it here.

Let’s start there. Next week, I go into more specific ideas that can help. It’s important to note that all the ideas really do build off of each other.

In the meantime, if you have some ideas about managing your calendar that you want me to share, send them my way. Either post them in the comments below or send me an email.