Mike 
“Someone left their car running outside.” The person who spoke those words had interrupted a meeting with this surprising revelation. When the car was described, one of the people in the room exclaimed, “Oh, no! That’s my car. It’s been running for 3 hours.” Fortunately, everything was fine.
We might say that this could happen to anyone, but it’s more accurate to say that it could happen to anyone who is overloaded with too much on his or her mind. Could that describe you as a leader? You may have never left a car running for several hours, but are there other ways in which overload is affecting you and your organization?
One of the most difficult aspects of leadership is the never-ending nature of the job. You can always spend more time wrestling with an important decision or mentoring a key staff member or reviewing the state of your organization. This is especially true in churches and ministries where resources are limited, the need is enormous, and the external context is constantly changing.
Consider these signs of overload. You routinely forget things you need to do. You make commitments that you can’t possibly keep. When scheduling meetings, you don’t allow enough time to accomplish what’s needed. You can’t remember the last time that you were able to step back for at least a half-day to think strategically.
If some (or all) of these ring true, then you’re probably overloaded. While there are no easy solutions, here are four suggestions:
- Start by recognizing that your organization needs you for the long-haul and that your current practices and pace are not sustainable. Unless you’re willing to admit that it’s a problem, you won’t be willing to make any changes.
- Talk with your board and/or key staff members about it. You don’t need to solve this problem alone. In fact, you probably can’t solve it alone. It’s not an admission of weakness or failure to say, “I’m overwhelmed and feel like I’m drowning.”
- Put your highest priorities on your calendar first. If you need to schedule a day for blue sky thinking, don’t wait until the last minute or until you have a break. It will never happen.
- Reflect on how you’re spending your time and identify things that you don’t need to do. Take to heart the words of Jim Collins in Good to Great, who says that the great leaders he studied “made as much use of ‘stop doing’ lists as ‘to do’ lists. The displayed a remarkable discipline to unplug all sorts of extraneous junk.”
