Worth the Obsession
I’m always tempted to try to spread myself thin, to try to accomplish more than I should. The result is that I sometimes do a good enough job rather than giving something the care that it deserves.
I was challenged by a principle called “Do less, then obsess,” found in Morten Hansen’s book Great at Work:
Top performers did less and more: less volume of activities, more concentrated effort…
To work smart means to maximize the value of your work by selecting a few activities and applying intense targeted effort…
“Do less, then obsess” affects performance more than any other practice in this book.
I thought of this again as I read a recent tweet by James Clear on how to grow one’s audience on Twitter:
Few of us take 10 minutes to write a tweet, but Clear does. He says he spent 20 minutes writing that tweet. Twitter may not be worth that kind of effort to you, but if you want to use it well it requires a lot more work.
I found another example of this kind of focus and hard work as I read about Churchill’s approach to taking over the Admiralty at the start of World War 2, as detailed in Churchill by Andrew Roberts. “As in 1911-15, Churchill interests himself in every aspect of the Navy, however minor.” When he gave speeches at that time, he took “great trouble…with many rewrites and endless practice.”
Do few things. When you find the few things that are worth doing, put more work than seems reasonable and get them right. If it really matters, sweat the details.
The Few Things That Matter Most in Ministry
Some things matter more than others. Some priorities are worth whatever it takes to do them well.
The apostles neglected or delegated important things so they could focus on the Word and prayer (Acts 6:2). Paul told the Ephesian elders to pay careful attention to themselves and the flock (Acts 20:28). Paul instructed Timothy to immerse himself in developing a godly character and in teaching (1 Timothy 4:15), and charged him before God and Christ Jesus to preach the Word (2 Timothy 4:1). Some priorities in ministry are worth sweating over.
We can’t afford to neglect these things. If Clear can sweat over a tweet, and Churchill over maps and speeches, we can neglect or delegate certain things so that we focus on the crucial ministries that God has entrusted to us.
A lot of things don’t really matter in ministry, but our character, our growth in the Word and prayer, our attention to the flock, and our preaching matter a lot. I’m thinking about what it means to ignore a lot of other things, and to obsess about the few things that matter most.
