I steward Productive Pastor, a podcast and community of ministry leaders focused on how productivity and strategic ministry in the average church. I write about practical approaches to ministry productivity. I also write emails about church stability/development and my own theological musics in our current social moment.
When your productivity system fails, it’s not a personal failure. | Productive Pastor
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When a productivity system fails, it feels like a personal failure. For over 20 years in ministry, I’ve battled that feeling. It’s demoralizing. Work and motivation grind to a halt. What I've learned is that it’s not often your motivation failing—it’s your system failing you. The system breaks, and then you find yourself struggling just to keep up. Over the past few years, I’ve refined my own approach to managing my day, keeping up with projects, and handling the constant demands of ministry. Let me tell you the two main points where I’ve found every system eventually fails:1. You Spend More Time Working on the System Than Using It.We endlessly tweak, optimize, and chase the perfect app or approach. We are chasing the new instead of focusing on the actual work our system is supposed to manage for us. I've gone through every digital app imaginable, always hunting for the perfect tool. Some worked better than others, but I was always tinkering, always hoping for perfection that never arrived. 2. The System Doesn't Enable You to Get the Work Done.The system might look perfect, but it’s too complicated. Or, it fails because you don’t have the right tool with you. I used Goodnotes on my iPad for years—I loved it, but the constant syncing issues between my devices created significant friction. Crucially, the system also has to be emotionally appealing. If it’s not fun or satisfying to use, you won’t do it. Instead, the dissatisfaction itself becomes an emotional barrier that actually stops you from working. I hit all these walls about a year ago. I realized that, ultimately, paper was the best thing for me. I had TONS of templates I'd made over the years, and I realized to eliminate the friction, I just needed to print them out and keep them together in a simple notebook. Many of you bought these templates in 2024. I took all of the productivity and sermon prep templates I've made over the years and offered them to this community. So I printed some sheets, pulled out my comb binder, and made my own system. It was the single biggest thing I have done to positively influence my productivity in years. Everything is in one place, and I actually get excited to open the notebook each day. The perfect planner doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean you can't make it. I've taken all the templates I’ve ever created (including several new ones that have never been available!) and bundled them into one must-have package for a special Thanksgiving Weekend/Black Friday digital sale.
Click here to get on the waitlist! (I'm also starting 10 days of Planning and Sermon Prep content on 11/17, and you'll get access to all of that, too.) Remember those two failure points:
Let me help you skip that headache and start getting work done. Chad PS. If you've never used any of my templates before, I'd like to give you the two most popular ones. My Daysheet Template Sermon Preparation Worksheet |
Hey. I'm Chad Brooks.
I steward Productive Pastor, a podcast and community of ministry leaders focused on how productivity and strategic ministry in the average church. I write about practical approaches to ministry productivity. I also write emails about church stability/development and my own theological musics in our current social moment.
I love Acts 1:8. In those last words before Jesus’ ascension, we get a cascading approach to the mission of the church. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” As “witnesses, we are called to give testimony not just of the gospel of Jesus, but our personal knowledge and experience of it. Then we get this spiral of geographic and sociological markers of how this...
Hey Friend - Pursuing holiness with a busy schedule can feel complicated. I travel for work. Often. As the list in the back of my Bible tells me (yes, I keep track of these sorts of things in a weird way), I’ve spent 91 nights this year in a hotel. My job as a congregational developer in the UMC has me covering an entire state. Many days, I am by myself, I wrap up meetings in the evening, and then return to a hotel room. When I was in my 20s and getting serious about Christianity, I was...
I want to share what might be my biggest leadership lesson in ministry from the past few months. Trust is everything. I taught a workshop this summer called Trust as a Leadership Action. I've been adapting it for the next episode of Productive Pastor, but I want to give you a short run-down on it. Before we do that, let me ask you a question. How much has trust been a part of ministry for you? Have you ever served in a ministry that struggled with trust? Have you ever lost staff, leaders, or...