The more I consider how to be efficient with time, the more I come to realise that multi-tasking or task switching is a really inefficient practice. It drains our cognitive capacity, it is exhausting and destroys our overall productivity. It is impossible to be effective with your time if you try to do more than one thing at the same time. However, it pays to consider how you can achieve more than one result by doing just one thing. This is the next consideration in Time Efficiency – Killing many birds with just one stone.
The most common way to do this is to do something that you need to do anyway with someone else. But there are others.
Result & Relationship
A few years back we began a Christmas tradition. We need to get a Christmas Tree every year. That’s the result – buy a Christmas Tree. This had always been something I did on my own. Then one year I took a child with me. Now I take them all. I will admit, the task takes a bit longer now than when it was just me, and you could argue it is therefore less time efficient. But the truth is, we achieve the result, we build the relationship, we create memories and we set a pattern for future generations of our family to follow. Most people won’t think much of this as you do this kind of thing anyway, but take the example and look at the principle behind it. Doing one thing with someone else can achieve multiple results.
Task & Training
As well as this, you have the opportunity to complete a task and train someone else, both in how to the do the task but also in broader ways. Another family example, I went through a period of life where I was regularly running. I was training for a half marathon. It occurred to me, after the fact sadly, that one of my runs each week was a light recovery run on a Sunday afternoon after my longer runs on Saturday morning. I realised, again after the fact sadly, that I could have done this recovery run with my daughter. It would serve to build the relationship but also provide training in the specifics of running and in the broader sense of the importance of exercise. It would also have provided some much needed quieter time for my wife. And I would still get my lighter, easier recovery run. Multiple birds killed with just one well placed stone.
When I was training for ministry and leading weekly small group Bible studies and preaching, there is a point, early on in your prep for this where you are just brainstorming thoughts about the passage of the Bible you are studying. This can very easily (and potentially more effectively) be done with someone else. So, you do your prep, and train and disciple someone else all at the same time.
Using one outcome in multiple ways
There is another way to kill many birds with one stone. You work out how to get multiple uses out of the same thing. The obvious example that springs to mind is content creation. I write a blog post and all my focus goes into that. I then very simply turn that into a podcast and YouTube video and from it, harvest multiple social media posts. Another example is what the 19th Century Preacher – Jonathan Edwards called his ‘miscellanies’ and what Tiago Forte calls distilling and expressing your notes. You write general notes, study notes, project notes etc etc. They get used in one context. Down the line, you harvest this for use in another context. Years back I did a lot of research on the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and now, in a new role in a new organisation, I can benefit from this knowledge once again. I also did a lot of research into different types of Church Management Software. I have been able to share this with others who have been asking similar questions as I asked ‘back in the day’. You get the idea.
As previously stated, we all know that our time is a finite resource. Being obsessive about this is not healthy but, it is good and right to desire to be efficient with the time that we have. A key consideration therefore in our time efficiency is killing many birds with one stone. The more you can get out of each activity you give time to, the more efficient your use of time becomes. Please don’t obsess over this (that doesn’t lead anywhere good) but please consider your time efficiency – killing many birds with just one stone.
