When I started out in the ministry as an assistant pastor, back many moons ago, my pastor taught me a lot about time management.  One of the things I remember most is “your schedule is your boss.”  One of the pit falls that some missionaries fall into is that they are now their own boss and in many instances, they work from home/road.  That was one thing that I found was a challenge during our many miles we logged during deputation.  By the way, deputation is the process by which missionaries travel from church to church raising their support.  I never seemed to master the skill of keeping the calls going while on the road.  When you are staying in a different place each night, it is difficult to remember where you are much less who you need to call back and when.  So time management is a definite skill that you must master to be effective on the mission field.  I remember using my day planner each day (still do today) and keeping up with hourly appointments.  Sometimes meetings would be on the quarter hour.  I found that helpful when I was working two jobs and trying to get going on deputation.  Every minute was valuable to me.

Then comes a third world country with the famous Island Time.  That’s right nothing starts on time, and a precise time is “afternoon.”  Being a missionary takes those of us that are used to the minute by minute schedule and throws us into the slow paced island time mentality.  Poof!  We are supposed to instantly adjust.  Well some do, and some don’t.  A perfect example of this would be when I go to the bank to withdraw money and change it into the local currency.  I usually plan on two to three hours for this task.  (Thanks to an ereader app on my phone I can make use of this time and make it productive.)  Sometimes it can be a quick as 30 minutes, or I may have to come back another day because they decided not to open that day.  Therefore I cannot tell my wife that I will be back at a certain time because I don’t even know.

I have read several books on time management looking for ideas about how to make things work better, but I have yet to find the perfect secret answer.  So here is my secret answer: work by tasks not a schedule!  This seems simple, I know, but it works.  I increased my productivity and even relaxed – some.  For example, when I set my schedule for the week,  I do not schedule to work on translating materials from say 9am to 10:30am on Monday; instead I put that task for Monday before lunch.  So Monday morning, I work on translating materials and as incidentals come up, I put those in the mix.  Before this I was never getting to translating because during the time slot I had for it, people would stop by to see me, the generator would not crank, the water filter was messed up, etc., and before I knew it, there went my time to translate materials.  Another situation that arises in a third world country is that nothing happens on time.  When you have a meeting with someone here at say 10 that really means sometime before noon.

To wrap it all up, don’t get in a rush because in many countries you will just hurry up and wait.  Set tasks by the day and realize that you no longer work an 8 – 5 job.  I’ll have more to say about the practical applications on my next post.

Serving Jesus,

HGP3