4.4 Email & Voice Mail Control & Response: Email and voice mail are tools, not tyrants, yet many pastors and church leaders are tied to the never-ending barrage of digital communications that relentlessly comes in throughout the day. This can be controlled through designated checks throughout the day coupled with planned response times. Connecting a few dots in what we’ve covered so far, checking and responding to email and voice mail can be handled through Time Allotment, Pro-Active Scheduling, and/or One-Touch Calendar Filing.

My first recommendation is to eliminate any form of notification that might be in place. This would include computers, smart phones, iPads, digital watches, and others. Eliminate notification visuals, sounds, and vibrations so that you control when you check for email and voice mail. Text messages and perhaps other messaging formats might be included in this elimination. In brief, don’t interrupt yourself by allowing any types of notification alerts to break into your consciousness.

Set the times of day when you will check for emails, voice mails, and other messages. This could be done by setting standard rhythms such as checking at regular times of day, such as 9:00 am, noon, 3:00 pm, and 6:00 pm. Discipline yourself to check in with your messages at only these times. When you do so, if a quick response to a given message can be rendered, do so. That might be in the form of a quick reply, filing to a particular folder, or a deletion. If the message is going to require a lengthy response time, leave it for later, such as a time you have allotted for lengthy responses, or perhaps print it out and file it in your 1-31s.

My recommendation is that you utilize set times of day as a routine practice. However, some days are simply not routine because of travel, scheduled meetings, or projects and activities that need extended time and concentration. On such days, you can vary from your message control and response routine and schedule an alternative plan. For example, let’s say you routinely check messages at 9:00 am, but on a particular day you are going to be in a scheduled meeting from 8:30-10:00 am. Simply shift your routine to check messages just before or just after that meeting. Perhaps, on a particular day, you are working on a project and need an extended period to time in the afternoon for 5 th Gear focus. Routinely, you check messages at, say, 3:00 pm, but on this day you decide to alter your routine and spend 1:00-5:00 pm working on your project. So, you skip your routine 3:00 pm message check in favor of maintaining focus, determining to check messages after you wrap up your focus on that project for the day.

The point is to think through your control and response to messages in advance, thereby controlling both your time and your focus throughout the day. Don’t allow your incoming messages to become your master, stealing time and focus away from the planned priorities of your day. 

Managing Ministry Time well features a commitment to intentional email and voice mail control and response.

Last modified: Tuesday, June 20, 2023, 10:28 AM