Time Management Advice (Tyler)

Who did you interview and when? (I interviewed Pastor Aaron Cloud and the date was February 16th, 2009)

1) How do you set boundaries in your schedule so you are not totally controlled by others?
One of the ways that Aaron sets boundaries in his schedule is by blocking out times in his actual calendar. By doing this he is able to actually declare himself as "busy" during certain times of the day. For example, he has a time slot from 12-4 every Tuesday and Thursday as "busy". He actually uses this time to do study and catch up on some internet research. This is important time to him that allows him to stay grounded and true to himself. If he didn't have this time, then he would be overused and abused. It is a difficult time being the only pastor of a relatively small church in the middle of nowhere. There are many issues that are tied to the difficulty of this fact. One of the issues is the fact that living in the country, Aaron has to travel great distances in order to simply visit a group of people. I have been with him on a weekend when he put in close to one hour worth of travel. This was a startling fact for me. I don't know where I will "do" church, but if it is in the country, I need to be prepared to travel a ton. The travel time is something that Aaron anticipates and includes in his boundaries. If he knows that there is going to be a lot of time spent traveling, then he is going to have to include that time in his visiting. If he says that he is going to visit multiple people, then he needs to factor that into his boundaries. It would be extremely easy to become controlled by others in serving a small church. Because he is the only pastor, he is the only person that people call on when there is an issue that needs taken care of. So, his boundaries could be easily jumped if the congregation desired to get in touch with him. If someone in the congregation decided that they needed Aaron to come to his house, they know where to reach him and what his hours are. While this is convenient for them, it is a direct line to Aaron's time. He must be careful, and he intentionally sets up strict boundaries in order to prevent the abuse of these boundaries.

2) Time Management Advice
Two of the best pieces of advice for a new church staffer that Aaron recommends is both publishing his calendar and scheduling time for himself. Aaron mentioned that when he took his church leadership class, Dr. Drury mentioned the fact that he would block out entire hours in his daily schedule that was purely meant for writing and research. So, Aaron practices this as well (like I mentioned above). He blocks out that 12-4 time slot in order to have time saved for himself. If it wasn't for this time he would be constantly busy with ministry stuff. One of the ways he lets people know that he doesn't have entire hours dedicated to just traveling and ministry is through letting his calendar be public. When people see that he has events planned for studying and relaxation by himself, they know that this is his time and not theirs. This has come in handy in being able to tell people "no". Instead of Aaron saying, "no", he can simply tell them to look at his schedule and see if he has time. If he does, then he can say "yes". If he doesn't, then he can say "no". He lets the calendar do the talking.