The Art of Leadership Network.

Most of the pastors I know feel really guilty

about not replying on a Saturday when they get a message on a Saturday

or a Thursday night when they get a message on a Thursday night. What advice do you have for them about setting up

boundaries and reasonable expectations when it comes to responding to

inbound communication? The general rule here is clarity trumps accessibility.

So we think accessibility is what people want,

right, in a lot of positions in which there's a client base be it like congregants or a client for a

business. We think what they want is the ability to get in touch with us at any time.

What they really want is clarity. How do I get in touch with you and get an answer?

So in the absence of clarity where there's just a bunch of possible incoming channels,

there's emails and phones and text, when they want to talk to you, they say, I guess in the lack of any other clarity, I want to response as quickly as possible so that I can take care and take this off my to-do list. Like, okay, carry, like, answer, answer, good, now I can, we're going to meet gonna meet then great now I can take this off my

my to-do list but if there's clarity on here is how you reach me for certain things and how the

planning process works as long as it gives them that clarity it's just as valuable as

accessibility.

Welcome to the Cary Newhoff Leadership Podcast it's Cary here and I hope our time together today helps you thrive in life and leadership.

I think it's going to because today I sit down with Cal Newport.

He is a New York Times best-selling author. We talk about pseudo-productivity and how it leads to burnout,

slow productivity, and we go deep on specific advice to church leaders on boundaries

and how you cannot be available on demand, on call

to your congregation 24-7 and actually have a life

from one of the great time management thinkers of our day,

...