What Did You Do Last Week?
The Importance of Focused Work
What Did You Do Last Week?
That was the subject line of an email that went out to federal employees.
According to a Wall Street Journal article, "Federal workers were given until 11:59 p.m. Monday to respond with a list of '5 bullets of what you accomplished last week.' The email asked employees not to send any classified information."1
How would you answer that question? Could you come up with 5 bullet points of significant work you accomplished last week?
One of the dangers of pastoral life is drifting. While this is true theologically and missionally, it's also true in our weekly work. We can drift along, working unfocused and haphazardly. One way to counter this is to identify your Weekly Big 3.
The Weekly Big 3 are the three most important items you need to accomplish this week to make progress on your projects and goals. Of course, you'll do more than these three items during the week, but these are the most important!
Write them down once you've identified them and keep them in sight.
You should also identify your Daily Big 3, which are the three most important tasks that must be completed each day.
Now, here's the key: Make sure that you include items from the Weekly Big 3 in some of your Daily Big 3s.
While you probably can't spend the whole week accomplishing the Weekly Big 3, please ensure you're including blocks of time toward them. Doing so will help you achieve far more than you would by just drifting along.