{"id":12708,"date":"2017-05-11T17:36:52","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T00:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=12708"},"modified":"2017-05-13T06:09:40","modified_gmt":"2017-05-13T13:09:40","slug":"memo-to-fellow-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/memo-to-fellow-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Memo to Fellow Staff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Memo:<\/p>\n<p>As you probably know, I have been working in a church office for over 25 years. During this time, serving in youth ministry and in missions ministry fit my personality.\u00a0 For the most part, I can regulate my own workload.\u00a0 With an inbox that is always full, I can choose to move back and forth throughout the day between:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Creative work (publicity and promotion)<\/li>\n<li>Detailed cognitive work (planning, evaluating, developing strategies, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>Relational work (calling church members, meetings, mentoring, social media, emails, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>Times of learning and prayer (reading, praying, learning).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For over a quarter of a century, I have been blessed to be supervised by leaders who cared more about the results of ministry than the micro-managing of my daily workflow.\u00a0 Of course, there are times that things fall through the cracks, but having amazing assistants has\u00a0keep my major embarrassments to a minimum.<\/p>\n<p>I also work well in blocks.\u00a0 I remember that when I first came to Southcliff, the network server would shut down to back up at midnight. At least once a month I was shut out of my work when this happened.<\/p>\n<p>I usually work with my office door open.\u00a0 I enjoy connecting with everyone in our office and enjoy knowing what is going on in your lives.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, I have struggled lately with having the time to dig into new projects, projects that are far from superficial. Things, like evaluating Southcliff&#8217;s guest assimilation, creating a new environment to inspire our people to mission engagement, and evaluating mission trips \/ partnerships, are always on the back burner of my work day.<\/p>\n<p>As a part of my doctoral studies at Portland Seminary, I have just finished the book <strong><em>Deep Work<\/em><\/strong> by Cal Newport.\u00a0 Below is a link to a summary of the book:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/paulminors.com\/deep-work-cal-newport-book-summary-pdf\/\">https:\/\/paulminors.com\/deep-work-cal-newport-book-summary-pdf\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I want to try an experiment in my work week.\u00a0 It will begin this Monday and will last through June 19.<\/p>\n<p>I want to set aside a period of time each week for uninterrupted \u201cdeep work.\u201d\u00a0 I would like to do this on Mondays from 12:30 PM until 4:00 PM.\u00a0 \u00a0This will give me 3.5 hours to dig into some tasks that need a more deeper focus.<\/p>\n<p>I have already moved my weekly 1:15 PM meeting with Kevin to Mondays at 4:00 PM.<\/p>\n<p>I am also planning on making these changes between 12:30 PM until 4:00 PM on Mondays:<\/p>\n<p>1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I will close \u201cMicrosoft Outlook.\u201d\u00a0 This will keep email notifications from appearing.\u00a0 I will not look at (or respond to email) during this block of time.<\/p>\n<p>2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I will keep my office door closed.<\/p>\n<p>3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I will not be making any appointments nor agree to go to any meetings during this time. I can meet in the morning or at 4:30 PM.\u00a0 Since I am usually on campus until 8:30 PM on Tuesday Nights and Wednesday nights, I usually make appointments with church members during these times.\u00a0 I will set aside Tuesday afternoons to meet with staff.<\/p>\n<p>4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All phone calls sent to me will go to voicemail between these hours. \u00a0I will check them after 4 PM. \u00a0I will try not respond to text messages or calls (with the exception of my family) during this block of time.<\/p>\n<p>5)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 While I am \u201call in\u201d with Dr. Marr\u2019s admonishment that \u201cwe are in the people business,\u201d\u00a0 I feel that setting aside a few hours a week to be unavailable will not prevent me from living up to that expectation. \u00a0If I am in the office between 40-50 hours every week, I feel that I can set aside 3.5 hours on Monday afternoons to focus on uninterrupted work.\u00a0 This means that other staff will need to meet with guests who come during this time who are looking for financial assistance, crisis counseling, etc.<\/p>\n<p>6)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I will turn Facebook notifications off and will not look at Facebook during this time.<\/p>\n<p>7)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If someone has a simple question, they can email me.\u00a0 I will respond to them before I leave the office.<\/p>\n<p>8)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, <u>I will be available<\/u> for true emergencies\/security issues.\u00a0 Anyone can contact me on the intercom if there is an emergency.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for allowing me the freedom to explore ways that I can become more productive.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Stu Cocanougher, Share Strategy Pastor<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Email-Check-Flowchart.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12714 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Email-Check-Flowchart.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"804\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Email-Check-Flowchart.jpg 804w, https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Email-Check-Flowchart-236x300.jpg 236w, https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Email-Check-Flowchart-768x978.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Email-Check-Flowchart-150x191.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Email-Check-Flowchart-300x382.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 804px) 100vw, 804px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Newport, Cal. <i>Deep work: rules for focused success in a distracted world<\/i>. New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Memo: As you probably know, I have been working in a church office for over 25 years. During this time, serving in youth ministry and in missions ministry fit my personality.\u00a0 For the most part, I can regulate my own workload.\u00a0 With an inbox that is always full, I can choose to move back and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":12717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[958,960,957,959,609],"class_list":["post-12708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-email","tag-productivity","tag-stu-cocanougher","tag-time","tag-work","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12708"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12744,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12708\/revisions\/12744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}