Today’s Mission
Day 23
Balcony Day
Finishing Well
Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
PSALM 90:12
Tomorrow begins your last week of the 30-Day Change project. Today you will work from thirty thousand feet, working on this project, not just in it. Today you will do the essential work of ordering your final week for maximum impact. Today you get to bring order to your worksite as you move into the final stage, which we call “finishing well.” Today you will pull together the loose ends and set the stage for a profound transformation in the culture of your ministry.
As I wrote the words “profound transformation,” I had to pause and wonder, “Am I just being dramatic, or are those words actually true?”
I’m sticking with those words: profound transformation.
Here’s why: though the change may feel imperceptible to you, the shift from having an anemic, bare-bones volunteer team to having all your players in place is nothing short of profound. Seeing a solid volunteer infrastructure where there was none is like looking at a vineyard where there was a vacant lot or at a new home where there once was a dilapidated trailer.
There’s a good chance that over the last twenty-two days you have accomplished most of the assignments in this book. But there’s an even better chance that some have been left undone. Maybe you left some assignments 80 percent complete, but there’s still that 20 percent awaiting your attention.
You’ve got eight days to complete this transforming project, so let’s dive into today’s mission.
Today’s Mission
- Review the daily assignments from the past twenty-two days.
- Create a written list of all the items that still remain incomplete.
- For each item on the “remaining items” list, estimate how much time it will take to complete.
- Knowing that you really have six days left to complete these outstanding tasks, schedule time to complete each of them during the coming week. Once you have determined how much time each task will require, add 20 percent to that number of minutes and schedule those times in your calendar.
- Repeat this process for these newly found items as a part of Today’s Mission on days twenty-four through thirty.
- Make an updated master list of all those who have said yes to specific roles. Print out that list, including the role that each person has agreed to play, and display it prominently in your office.
- Summarize on one sheet of paper the roles that are yet to be filled. For this last week, you will be working from this much shorter list.
- Place a different potential volunteer’s name in each of the blanks for the remaining roles, using the remaining names on your master recruiting list as your pool.
- deliberate time with your family,
- time for specific spiritual disciplines
- and (of course) during this last week, two hours daily focused on building your volunteer team.
- Corral your emails and phone calls into a specific time block for each day. If your week is packed, you simply don’t have time to be immediately available this week. Plan on taking a break from Facebook and Twitter as well.
- Determine what will need to be cut from your schedule, being careful not to cut any of your top priorities (those things that have the potential to make your life and ministry different a year from now). You may need to reschedule a meeting or two or delegate some tasks or simply live with the possibility that there may be some part of your life that is less excellent this week. Remember that making these schedule and expectation adjustments for the upcoming week now prevents you from sacrificing more important priorities later.
- Keep working on the filtering process until you have a schedule for the week that allows time for your most important priorities, time for current appointments and a few hours of margin.