Mass Readings Audio
https://bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2021-02-07-usccb-daily-mass-readings
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – February 7, 2021
Welcome to the one hundred and fiftieth episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life.
My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.
In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B). A common complaint I hear from clients when we explore time management is that they are constantly interrupted, and they can’t get any work done. Whether it is coworkers or direct reports who are constantly asking for help, a boss needing something immediately, the phone ringing, emails, or texts, the constant demands for attention seem to be distracting from the “real” work that needs to get accomplished. But when I ask if these “interruptions” are part of their job, the answer is usually “yes”. So, attending to the interruptions is part of the “real” work they are responsible for.
That’s usually the case for all of us. Just ask any store clerk who is trying to get their administrative work done and a customer needs help, or any mom who is trying to get dinner made while their child is asking for help with homework, or any boss who is under a deadline to turn in a report and an employee needs direction or the podcaster who is trying to finish this week’s episode when her dog comes and stares at her because he needs to go out. There are always interruptions that get in our way of getting things done. How do we manage them? How do we finish all our tasks when we keep getting interrupted?
To answer these questions, let’s look to Jesus and our Gospel reading this Sunday. There are two important principles we can take away for managing our time in business and in life. First, time management is really priority management, and second, we need to be clear about our priorities and what is really important.
Jesus Was Always Interrupted
In last week’s Gospel, Jesus had been teaching in the synagogue when the man with the unclean spirit interrupted him. (Mk 1:22-25) Then, “on leaving the synagogue he entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.” (Mk 1:29) I suspect that he was expecting to get a little rest, but “Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. They immediately told him about her.” (Mk 1:30), so any plans for relaxation were interrupted. Jesus “approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her, and she waited on them.” (Mk 1:31) Then, whatever plans he had for the night were once again interrupted because “when it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door.”(Mk 1:32-33) So Jesus “cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons.” (Mk 1:34)
His day was filled with interruptions. So, the next morning, “rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. Simon and those who were with him pursued him and on finding him said, ‘Everyone is looking for you.’” (Mk 1:35-37) Once again, his plans were interrupted. But he didn’t get annoyed. Instead, “he told them, ‘Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose, have I come.’” (Mk 1:38)
What’s Your Priority?
What insight can this reading give to that store clerk, mom, boss, or podcaster and what insight can it give to us? The administrative work, making dinner, finishing the report, and producing a podcast were all tasks. Sure, they are things that need to get done for someone’s benefit but looking deeper, you’ll discover that the interruptions are the more important aspect of their jobs. People (and sometimes pets) take priority over tasks.
I can hear you arguing with me about this as my clients often do. Why is someone else’s issue more important than the tasks I have planned? After all, most of our tasks are done for people. The answer is that they aren’t always more important, but you don’t know until you ask. Depending on your role, or your position, you have options for how you handle these situations.
Obviously, if you are customer facing, your job will require that the customer takes priority. When the interruptions are internal, sometimes you need to teach people how to interrupt you. You need to help them prioritize their issues and recognize when it is appropriate to interrupt. Sometimes you need to place a 2-minute interruption of lesser importance to you in front of a 2-hour task of greater importance because allowing another employee to continue to be productive for the rest of the day is also important.
What’s Your Attitude about Interruptions?
For any of these alternatives to work, you first need to check your attitude about interruptions because on the other side of most interruptions are people who need your help. If your attitude is that they are the problem, then I have to ask what part of that do you own? What I mean is, begin with a reflection of how you are contributing to the interruptions.
I had a client who complained about people always interrupting him. When we dug deeper, the root cause was that his team did not feel empowered to make any decisions on their own. If they did, he’d come along behind them and undo whatever they had done. So, they were trained to ask instead of being trained how to make decisions for themselves.
I had another client whose nature was such that he thrived on interruptions. He would answer his phone, respond to texts, check his email when the notification alarm sounded, and enter into a conversation with an employee who knocked at the door, all within the course of our one-hour meeting. The interruptions were distractions that kept him from doing the difficult interior work he had hired me to help him to do.
As I was writing this, I was interrupted by a message notification on my phone. There was a short video that was shared in a group that I’m a member of. At first, I was irritated about being interrupted, but I was also curious, so I clicked on the video. As it turned out, this video had a timely and powerful message that helped me clarify my thoughts for this podcast. This interruption was an unexpected blessing.
So, begin by reflecting on your attitude about interruptions. That is, are they an important part of your job, or are they distractions that are keeping you from what is more important? Then, reflect on your attitude about the people who are interrupting you. Are they an annoyance or are they people who need your help? And don’t assume all interruptions are bad because they may be a blessing in disguise.
Plan to Be Interrupted
Regardless, the best plan is to plan for interruptions. They are a part of life. If you have regularly scheduled meetings with your employees, many interruptions can be avoided because issues that are not time-sensitive can be addressed at those meetings. When employees don’t have an alternative, they will seek you out as things come up. The frequency and duration of these meetings depend on the nature of your job. Five-minute check-ins once a day, thirty-minute problem-solving sessions once a week, or one-hour prioritization meetings once a month are all possible options. Also, allow time as you are planning your day for the unexpected. Don’t fill your schedule so full that you can’t address the things that come up throughout the day. The point is, based on the nature of your job, plan time for those things that tend to lead to interruptions.
What’s Really Important
I mentioned that time management is really about priority management so you must be clear about your priorities. In our second reading, St. Paul tells us that his priority was to share the Gospel “and woe to me if I do not preach it!” (1 Cor 9:16)
If you’re a leader, your #1 job is to develop your people. That means providing them with the training they need to do the job and then empowering them to make decisions on their own to get the job done. Training takes time but empowering people without proper training leads to chaos and chaos leads to more interruptions. Training them and then not letting them do the job, leads to a constant stream of interruptions bottlenecked at your door. When you make people your priority, your tasks will get done, together with your team.
One Last Thought
One last thought that is really important. How did Jesus deal with interruptions? “Rising very early before dawn, [Jesus] left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.” (Mk 1:35) Before anything else, Jesus prayed. His #1 priority was time with his Father in prayer. As a Christian, it is your #1 priority too. How else will you know what is really important? How else will you know how to prioritize your day?
Servant of God Elisabeth Leseur wrote, “I have planned my days so that as much as possible they may represent, as it were, the whole of my life in miniature. Prayer, my precious morning meditation, work seriously performed, some work or care for the poor, and my family and household responsibilities…. I wish I could organize a holy crusade against hate and promote justice and love among men and women. At any rate, in this garden God has given me to cultivate, I want to plead by my attitude, my words, and my actions before everyone I meet the great cause of charity. Will I not thus be defending the cause of God?”
Remembering that our work is only a part of the whole of our lives and that the tasks we are responsible for are only a minuscule component of our life’s purpose, puts things into perspective. If our attitudes, our words, our actions before everyone we meet plead the cause of charity, whether planned or the result of an interruption, then we have kept the right priorities.
Let’s pray.
My God, help us to always remember that to love and serve you means to love and serve each other. Our lives are filled with many responsibilities and in our busyness, we lose track of what is really important. Help us to order our work with the right priorities, so that in everything we do, by our attitudes, words, and actions, we bring glory to you.
May God bless you abundantly this week in what you have planned and in the unexpected, and may you glorify the Lord by your life.
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