Just do ONE thing.
Years ago, when I was on an Inter-mission (if you don’t know what that is… check it out here!) I discovered that I would be OFF for 100 Days. So for those 100 Days I committed to doing just one thing. Each day I’d have one thing I wanted to accomplish - it could be visiting somewhere, fixing something around my home, completing a task from start to finish - but it was always just ONE THING and when it was done. The rest of the day was my own to simply be. It was an amazing way to approach this intentional time away from my ministry context. Just do the one thing!
If you are curious about some authors who talk about this concept more fully, I’d encourage you to check out Gary Keller and Jay Papasan’s book, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results (2012).
They say, “Until your ONE thing is done - everything else is a distraction.” In ministry, we can be distracted by many things - and, yes - many very important things… but it is a lot of things all at once. When are we finding space and time to focus on the ONE thing - whatever that might be for you.
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results
YOU WANT LESS. You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what's the cost? Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions--and lots of stress. AND YOU WANT MORE. You want more productivity from your work. More income for a better lifestyle. You want more satisfaction from life, and more time for yourself, your family, and your friends. NOW YOU CAN HAVE BOTH--LESS AND MORE. In The ONE Thing, you'll learn to * cut through the clutter * achieve better results in less time * build momentum toward your goal* dial down the stress * overcome that overwhelmed feeling * revive your energy * stay on track * master what matters to you The ONE Thing delivers extraordinary results in every area of your life--work, personal, family, and spiritual. WHAT'S YOUR ONE THING?
Focusing on the one thing naturally aligns with Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (2016). Both authors are challenging the myth of multi-tasking. In ministry, many of us are balancing a multitude of plates every day. We say we are so BUSY. The research says that most of us are stressed and overwhelmed by the volume and weight of everything we carry in the practice of ministry. There is no quick fix. I’d wonder though could we benefit from some insights like:
“When you work, work hard. When you’re done, BE DONE.” (how many of us, including me, are still checking email on our phones just before bed or during our favourite show?! Let’s commit to putting pencils down at some point in our day… and being done.)
“The more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish.” (how many of us have a dozen or more tabs and applications running at the same time with notifications on pulling us here and there?! I confess, even as I am writing this email, I’m still doing various other things - I need these messages as much as you!)
“If you don’t define productivity you’ll default to busyness.” (We all need to decide what productive work looks like and spend as much time as we can doing it. Hopefully doing it in a ‘do the one thing’ kind of way. Don’t get me wrong, we all have other things that need to get done but if we spend all our time doing those things - the one thing may not get our full attention. Or it won’t feel like we’ve done anything productive since our attention has been so fractured and our spirit will feel fractious as we do it.)
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.
Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.
To glean more insights from these authors, you could add these books to your summer reading list but I’d also encourage you to download a book summary (you could ask an AI tool to do that for you), or listen to a podcast episode where the author is interviewed about the topic or subscribe to their own podcasts to grow more in your commitment to focused and fulfilling work and ministry.