A crisis does many things.

It clarifies things; it creates stress and anxiety; it pushes us to do things we have been putting off and a whole host of other things.

One thing that a crisis does, though, is magnify reality, what is wrong and right in our teams, relationships, and organizations.

Here’s what I mean.

If your church was growing and had momentum, there is a good chance you kept that. If your church had a strong leadership pipeline and discipleship strategy, that has continued if your church had a clear win, why you exist as a church, that continued.

If your marriage was healthy, yes, this has made it hard and brought stress into your life, but you had a foundation to continue to build on.

If your marriage was on the rocks before the crisis, before Covid-19 hit, your marriage is most likely continuing down that road.

If your church did not have a clear win before the crisis, the crisis only magnified that lack of clarity.

What often happens in a crisis is we simply continue to do what we did before, whether it worked or not. And the reason is that it is what we know, it is what is comfortable for us.

At this point, in this season of quarantine, we see what we spent our lives building. We see it in our relationships and churches and teams. That doesn’t mean you can’t pivot if things aren’t going well. It doesn’t mean you can’t come out of this stronger, but it does show you what you have to work on.

One of my favorite books that I always quote to my kids is The Compound Effect. In it, the author makes the point that our life becomes the sum of our choices. Like compounding interest in a bank account, each decision build towards something when things are stripped away, when the world shifts, like right now, we see what we have built towards.

Having a schedule is excellent. Nothing changes in our lives without a change to our schedule.

When it comes to emphasizing your health, whether that is physical, emotional, spiritual, or relational, you have to look at your schedule. If you don’t schedule when you will workout, spend time with your spouse and kids, when you will grow and read books, it won’t happen.

But, what if a schedule was only part of the battle?

I mean, you can change your schedule and only marginally move the ball forward. Meaning, you can make a schedule, but what if it scheduling the wrong things?

More important than a schedule is a plan, a strategy.

Too often, though, we confuse a schedule with a plan or a strategy.

A schedule is not the same thing is a plan, and in leadership terms, it is not the same thing as a strategy.

Just because you schedule emails or social media posts, does not mean that you have a plan or a strategy.

A strategy is the “why” that influences your schedule.

How do you know the difference?

Here are two simple questions:

1. What do you hope to accomplish?
2. What will it take to accomplish that?

When I weighed 300 pounds and wanted to lose weight, I went to the doctor and told him that I wanted to lose weight. He said, “That is a terrible goal. Make being healthy your goal and do that for the rest of your life,” and it changed everything.

So I set out to be healthy. It changed my mindset on things, and that strategy, that plan shaped my schedule. It affected my sleep because many people attempt to lose weight without doing anything with their sleep. But if being healthy is a goal, then sleep matters.

In your work, life, and relationships, what do you hope to accomplish? Write it out; be clear on that. A month from now, six months to a year from now, what will be successful? Be clear on that, so you know what you are trying to accomplish. Is there a number you can attach to it so that it is even more explicit in your mind? Too often, I don’t think we clarify what it means to be successful in life and leadership.

Second, what will it take to accomplish that goal?

Ten years ago, Katie and I looked at our marriage and realized that we didn’t have the time for each other as we wanted, and we found ourselves not being on the same page, which created easily avoidable frustrations. So we laid out what we thought would be a success for our marriage and family and some things it would take for us to accomplish it: weekly date night, weekly calendar sync, discussing finances once a month, to name a few. Now, we don’t always hit those each week and month. We have something to shoot for and have a way to know if we are moving towards our goals.

A strategy and a plan form your schedule in life, leadership, and relationships. It creates the way forward for you.

It is becoming more and more common to work remotely. Not only in offices but for churches. Especially with the rise of church plants, more and more pastors find themselves working from coffee shops, their house,s or shared workspace.

In our world today, more and more companies are sending workers home to stop the spread of coronavirus.

The transition to this or starting your own business in your house can be difficult. I’ve worked from home for at least half of my week for the last decade and, through trial and error, have found some things that have worked (and not worked).

Here are seven ideas to work from home successfully:

1. Get dressed. It is tempting to get up, throw on a hat and stay in your pajama pants, but fight this urge. Get a shower, eat a good breakfast, grab some coffee, and go to work. The more you can make it like work, the better. Getting dressed gets your blood moving and helps you to move into “work mode.”
2. Have a designated workspace. Depending on your set up, this can be hard, but you must have a workspace. If you can have a room with a door, this is ideal but not completely necessary. I’ve had seasons where my office was a kid’s bedroom, and that is part of it. But have a space set aside where you do work. If it is at the dining room table, it makes it challenging to stop working or disconnect mentally.
3. Have a clear start and stop time. Some jobs that work remotely have this built-in. I have a friend who works for a call center but does it in his house, so he has to sign in at a specific time. For others, like a pastor, this isn’t as clear. It is crucial to define, especially if you are married and have kids, when you will start and when you will stop. This will help to prevent working more than you should and having a clear boundary.
4. The water cooler factor. If you work in an office, interruptions are part of the day. People are stopping by, you getting up to walk around. These can be helpful and intrusive. You must plan for these to work from home. I try to break my day up into 90-minute increments and have a break in between that could be as simple as getting more coffee. Getting up to move around is. Not only helpful for your body and brain, but also creative thinking.
5. Stay focused. It is easy to work from home and not stay focused. After all, you can see other things that need to be done, and no one is looking over your shoulder telling you not to look at blogs, Facebook, or the news. You must have a system to stay focused on the task at hand. One of the things I installed was Chrome Nanny and put in particular websites that are blocked during my work hours, like social media sites, to help me stay focused.
6. Handling interruptions. Working from home, you will still have interruptions. Kids are knocking on your door, your spouse asking you to do something. This is part of the flexibility of not being in an office, but you have to have a system for handling them; otherwise, you won’t get any work done. There are times when my door is locked, and the kids leave me alone and times when it is open, and they can do schoolwork or play on my floor while I work.
7. Disconnecting from work. If you work from home, you walk out of your home office and your home. You don’t get that 30, 60-minute commute to disconnect from work, listen to sports radio, or have some silence before you connect with your family. I used to work, and as soon as I was done, go into family mode. This doesn’t work as I can be on edge or still thinking about work. Now, I workout, take a walk, or read some sports blogs and then go into family mode. You have to learn how to make your commute happen without having a commute.