Your Work is Some of the Most Difficult Work in the World

Ever felt like you're juggling ten tasks at once in your church role, trying to please multiple bosses and a diverse congregation? You're not alone, and there's a way to not just survive, but thrive. On the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, I, Todd Rhoades, take you through the transformative power of Deep Work, a concept that can revolutionize the way you approach ministry tasks. Drawing from Cal Newport's groundbreaking work and Gloria Mark's eye-opening research, we unpack how to navigate the constant buzz of shallow tasks and create an oasis of productivity. With biblical wisdom as our backdrop, we discuss how to harness quietness and trust to find unparalleled strength in your focused work hours.

With your day likely split between pastoral duties, administrative jobs, and countless interruptions, how do you find time for the work that truly matters? In this episode, I lay out my personal strategies for scheduling and protecting this crucial work time, sharing how an hour of deep focus can equate to a day's worth of productivity. Listen in for actionable advice on how to identify distractions and deliberately set aside time for those complex, meaningful tasks that require your full attention. Whether you're a senior pastor or part of the youth ministry team, this episode will challenge you to prioritize what's truly important, offering practical tips that promise to boost your ministry's impact and your personal satisfaction in the work you do.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Hi there, welcome to this edition of the Healthy Church Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes. I am one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom. Thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 1: 0:20

This week we're taking a look at Deep Work. It's a book by Cal Newport. You can get it over at Amazon or wherever you buy books. It's called Deep Work by Cal Newport and we're talking about kind of the differences. We introduced the topic yesterday the differences between Deep Work, which is the really important work that really moves us forward, and the difference between Deep Work and shallow work, which is just some of the more mundane things we do answer phone calls, answer emails, social media, those kind of things.

Speaker 1: 0:52

And today we want to talk about one of the aspects of your work that I think and some people may dispute it, but I don't is that your work as a church staff member is some of the most difficult work in the world, and this goes for whether you're a senior pastor, whether maybe you're an executive pastor, maybe you're a worship or a student ministry's guy or gal. Your work is some of the most difficult work in the world because you don't have just one boss. A lot of people just have one boss or work on a team, but you not only work on a team but you probably have multiple bosses, both literally in the work chain of your church, in the hierarchy of your church, but also just a lot of people look to you and almost sometimes in the church feel like, yeah, they are your boss, they pay your salary or whatever, but you have a lot of different people that you have to work with. You have a lot of different people that you have to please and sometimes I think that your work is some of the most difficult work in the world. But later this week we're also going to talk about how your work is not only difficult but it's also some of the most important work in the world and some of the most fulfilling work in the world, and we're going to talk about that later. But because your work is so difficult, I think that's one of the reasons why you really need to have some time we talked about this yesterday some time even on your calendar for this uninterrupted work where you can, as Cal Newport says, do the deep work, the important work that you really need to do as a church staff member, and my fear is that a lot of us, because we are constantly distracted. We're going to talk about that in a second. Because we're constantly distracted, we don't get to do a whole lot of uninterrupted work or a whole lot of this deep work that we really need to do for our ministries to be effective.

Speaker 1: 2:46

And Gloria Mark wrote a really interesting research paper a while back. It's called the Cost of Uninterrupted Work. You can look it up on the internet. It's a really interesting paper and read and research project and this is what she found and maybe you've heard this before, but she says from her research that when you are doing work and you are interrupted, that distraction, that interruption it typically takes someone 23 minutes and 15 seconds for them to return back to the original task after that interruption. It disrupts not only your concentration but it disrupts what you are doing and it really disrupts your mental state. So how do we get this deep work done?

Speaker 1: 3:34

And I mentioned before one of the best ways is just to and I literally do this every day I'll put an hour to two hours of deep work on my calendar. I will block off all phone calls. I will turn off my email. We use Basecamp as our communications tool here at Chemistry Staffing and just since I've started recording this email. I've gotten three pings, three instant messages on Basecamp of people either telling me something or wanting something from me, and I turn those off during my deep work time because I can't be distracted. Here's what happens in this. Here's what happens when you're distracted or when you reply to emails and pings and Slack messages when they come in is that you're on all of a sudden. You're on somebody else's agenda. You're responding to what other people want from you rather than what you really need to get done. So we're going to talk today about how to respond to this and I'm going to give you a challenge here at the end today that hopefully will help you as you continue this week with this most difficult work that you do every day as a church staff member.

Speaker 1: 4:43

In Isaiah 30, verse 15, it says In quietness and trust is your strength, and this is, I think, actually describing what Cal Newport is saying. It's actually describing the atmosphere that you need to have in place for deep work. So the first thing I think you need to do, as I've said, is multiple times, because I can't get deep work done if it's not on my calendar. I just I have to schedule, so schedule. The second thing is, you need to get in the right spot. You need to ensure that your workplace and your work spaces are conducive to deep work, and that means keeping disruptions at minimal levels or none whatsoever.

Speaker 1: 5:24

So what are your enemies? Your enemies are any kind of notifications on your computer or your phone. Turn off your notifications, even if it's for an hour or two hours. Here's something I like to think a lot of times when is the last time that I got a ping or a Slack message or an email or a phone call that couldn't have waited a half hour or an hour? It's very. They do happen from time to time, but very seldom is there something that you absolutely have to do right now. So take the time, turn off your notifications. Make sure your workplaces. If your door is open, make sure you close your door. If you have an assistant or a team member or other people in your office, just say, hey, I'm going to be out of pocket for the next hour, next two hours. Don't message me, don't knock on my door. If you could, if you need to relocate, if you need to get out of the office and be able to make that happen, do that, but make sure that you're in a right place and you've got all those notifications turned off and most of our phones have very easy. On an iPhone, you just you flip the quiet button right. On Android, you can, just you can turn it, turn your all your notifications off or turn your ringer down or whatever. It's very easy to do, but it's very hard to do. I get that, but that's really what you need to do.

Speaker 1: 6:45

So here's your challenge this week and for today specifically, I want you to be aware of your situation. Determine today maybe you don't do any deep work today, but determine what are your most common interruptions. Where are you most susceptible to interruptions? Is it somebody knocking on your doors? Is somebody walking through your doors, phone calls? Is it texts? Is it responding to emails? Is it being diverted by social media? Write those down. Just get out a piece of paper and write down those things. What are your most common interruptions and distractions? And then we're going to make a plan. And again, if you don't do a plan, make a plan to do deep work. You just won't do it. You have to be proactive. Schedule on your calendar.

Speaker 1: 7:26

So today I want you to do two things essentially I want you to write down your most common interruptions all day today. Just write them down. There might be five, there might be 20, the most common interruptions, but write those down so that you can be aware of them and then you're going to try and eliminate them for what you're going to do. Number two, and that is to make a plan and schedule it on your calendar. Literally, I would like for you to schedule 30 minutes to an hour of deep work tomorrow. You can decide you don't even have to decide today what you're going to work on, but it's just put it on your calendar as deep work and put it for 30 minutes to an hour and make sure that whatever interruptions you identified today, you do everything in your power to take those off the table for your one hour tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 8:14

And after that, tomorrow we can talk about remembering how great you feel when your deep work session is over and how much you feel like. I've done deep work sessions where I feel like I literally get a whole day's worth of work done in an hour Just because I'm concentrated and really in the zone. Once you get that down, you just rinse and repeat and it's an awesome feeling when you can really get a lot done and really feel like you're doing things that are moving the needle. So that's your plan for today Identify your interruptions and get out your calendar. Put 30 minutes to an hour of deep work on for tomorrow, and tomorrow we'll be back. I hope you'll join us here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We're going to talk about how important your work is, because your work on our church staff is one of the most important work in the world.