Resources e-letter 16:1 - February 2016

NEW: ‘Sorting out your study’

Part 1: the space in the room
Part 2: the stuff in the room

These two Articles are designed primarily for Ministers who work from home but are applicable too to all church and mission staff including those who work out of a central office.

This first part investigates the space in the room in three sections.

1. Enjoy your study!  Twenty factors that impact the feel of the room - small changes to one or two of these can make a big difference.
2. Lay out the room  Issues to consider include purpose, desk location, clutter, vertical spaces, safety, workflow.
3. Place the desk  Further thinking on this key piece of furniture covering what its real use should be, how to work at it effectively and how to organise what you have on it.

The point is that God has made us as human beings and not as machines. Especially if administration is not our thing, we function better in our studies if we find the space feels good.

The second part investigates the stuff in the room. The focus is on paper but IT files and emails are covered too. There are three sections.

1. Sort yourself out  The secret to handling paperwork is the SORT stage. This section suggests seven sorting principles that will give a new slant on this whole subject.
2. File to find  There are four issues to change the way you think about filing, followed by three types of filing distinguished by the time you allow yourself to find something in them: Holding - two seconds, Filing - 20 seconds, Storage - two minutes.
3. Categorise carefully  Principles for how to separate out different types of subject matter.

I cover these basic principles in my deskwork training sessions but have now put them into print. Articles A36 & A37 Sorting out your study are now available in the Resources section.
  
  

Resources on planning

Here is a list of Articles and Training Notes listed in the Planning index of the website.

A4           Twelve questions to help you plan - A jargon-free toolkit
A35        Mapping your church – Practical planning tools
TN17      Suggested questions for an annual review
TN25      The radical values that Jesus taught
TN32      What do you mean by ‘vision’?
TN48      Let’s get purpose statements right
TN54      Creating space for a Planning Retreat
TN64      Help! I’m a consultant
TN74      Understanding values
TN86      Customer care for churches?
  
  

Church Administrators in Devon and Cornwall

I am running a Church Administrators' training day in Plymouth on 28^th April. If you are in the South-West and can promote this in any way, I would be most grateful as my contacts are limited. Details will be on the UCAN events page within a week.
  

Thank you for your interest in the Resources section of my website and with my warmest good wishes