Once again, thank you to everyone who took part. If you'd like to hear more on the Good Habits of a Church Administrator and the Bad Habits of a Church Administrator, be sure to check out the podcasts Gavin did with Anna Wood from Cornerstone Church, Liverpool.

Here's the rest of our results:

8. We'd love to do a series on good habits of a church administrator, what three good habits would you recommend?

- If a job/task takes less than 3 minutes, do it straight away, don't add it to a list
- If a job/task takes longer than 3 hours, split it up into small jobs
- If you have a job/task that you have been putting off, then go at it 100% for 3 minutes, and after this it will seem easier

- Document, document, document

- Keep up-to-date - have a regular weekly slot or two for admin, don't let it hang around. Liaise with leadership. Prayer.

- Proven systems to ease/organise workflow
- Good diary management
- Taking notes, notes and more notes so you don't forget anything

- Email everything, you can't remember it all
- Do not have your mobile number used outside working hours
- Don't have access to your work emails on your mobile

- Schedule time in your diary for everything - even your breaks.
- Complete the task you least want to do first, then the rest of your day should be easier.
- Accepting that sometimes getting a task done, even when it isn't perfection in your eyes, is good enough.    

- Diarise priorities; don't prioritise 'diary'
- Spend time with other staff/ministry leaders to understand their needs and challenges to help you support them better
- Slowing down to sharpen the saw is always better than continuing to hack at the tree with a blunt one.

- Compliance to church constitution openess efficiency

- Respecting the difference in others.
- Team Work
- Inclusivity

- Being able to work unnoticed
- Listen to people
- Forgiveness

- Encourage your staff
- Keep communicating
- Lead by example

- Keep a diary, read notice boards .
- Set aside time each day to answer emails
- Be good at filing on computer and desk

- Spending quality, undivided time with the Lord
- Working as a team, giving, sharing and accepting delegation
- Being rigorous and focused on doing the right jobs rather than only doing the jobs right.

- Prayer
- Communication
- Time management

- Talk to people
- Be excited and passionate about what you are doing.
- Don't try and do it on your own! Take people with you

- Connect the practical work of ministry to the Gospel
- Make good notes
- Be an avid encourager

- Good listener
- Note taker
- Regular meetings

- Start the day on your knees so you don't end up on them. (pinched from Rachel Slough but it has stuck with me over this last year)
- Diarise! Paper diary or electronic diary but diarise your jobs.
- Prioritise. There are some things and some people that CAN wait

- Acknowledging  receipt of emails that you just don't have bandwidth to deal with right away - particularly ones that have taken others time & effort to write
- Always proof read one more time than you think necessary
- Just up the phone and chat things through more and encourage others to do the same. Talking not typing builds connection and consensus. We need to make an effort to get over pandemic habits , not all of which helped us.

- Email everything no asking
- Keep things separate
- Restrict your access to aid your work load

- Helpfulness, availability, sharing knowledge

- Pray - and call his strength and wisdom
 

- We are a people organisation always take time to listen- seekers members staff volunteers - the  admin / to do list will wait
 
- Focus and never overpromise and underdeliver

- Take time out to regularly step back and look at the big picture
 
- Acknowledge emails even if to say you will get back to them in a few days
 
- Use Microsoft to do to organise your to do list to include lists for particular people and meetings
 
- Delegate to volunteers
 
- Establish a rhythm of the week for tasks

- Connect with other church administrators, don't be afraid to say no, at the end of the day write a list of any outstanding jobs rather than trying to stay and complete them

- Communication  
- Prayer
- Welcome people interruptions as an opportunity to be Jesus

- Keep a day book and write it all down, so easy to forget things (or is that just me!)
 
- Find someone to be accountable to
 
- Attend conferences that feed your soul

- The power of incremental progress. Each week I aim to keep the wheels turning AND make just one thing 5% better than it was.

- Being open about how you are feeling
 
- Being willing to learn from others
 
- Being organised

- Organisation, consistency, communications

- Patience, determination, and the skin of a rhinocerous

- Prayer, lists and a good spreadsheet!

- Don't put it  off till tomorrow

- Get check lists for every eventuality so you can make sure things run smoothly

- Being honest
- Being organised
- Having good communication

- Pray! Have a good calendar and task list. Communicate with others clearly and effectively

- Seeking to  clarify vision (asking the why question) and seeking to see how activity  connects to it
- Relationships matter - habit of 'engaging with people' rather than 'completing tasks'
- Creating a framework for your week: where key things mostly stay the same (those things achieving the 'important, non-urgent tasks') with flexibility to adapt to other things as they arise

- Being reminded regularly of ultimately why I am doing church administrative work -  through prayer and scripture - via personal 'quiet time' or accountability  with someone else in the church. Trying to keep this as a the starting point  for all work being done.
- Organisation - daily, weekly, monthly and annual organisation and rhythms. Planning when things need to be done so that you aren't always reactive, so that there is time set aside for the proactive work that should add so much value to the work we do and therefore to the church we serve.
- Remaining humble - be willing to admit mistakes, take responsibility and step up to put things right rather than becoming defensive. Within this, be humble enough to admit if you are struggling, need help or are overcapacity -  don't retain the facade of being in control with others you work with/for if it risks creating problems down the line - be open (in an appropriate manner) with others so that the quality and accuracy of work completed ultimately increases.

- Maintain your relationship with Jesus
- Plan as much as you can in advance!
- Don't re-invent the wheel if others can give you a starting point.

- Sharing lunch daily with the team including pastors - as much as we can
- Spontaneously providing teas/coffees to each other during the day
- Always offering a listening ear to the pastors when they need a sounding board.

- Being organised
- Seeing the role as ministry and gospel work (not office work)
- Ask for help (don't repeat work someone else has already done)

- Regular review and evaluation
- Focussed of grace
- Personal time to pray

- Event planning support

- Make notes
- Ask more question
- Recognise you are needy, ask for help

- Pray
- Ask for help
- Review things regularly

- Be well organised
- Make the church office a place where people can feel comfortable and welcome.
- Have good boundaries between you work life and personal life.

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9. What are some of your bad habits that you wish you could change?

- Plugging gaps everywhere
- Spending to much time moaning
- Ignoring issues to avoid drama

- Too controlling

- Taking too long to get things looking perfect when less than perfect would suffice.

- Saying yes without thinking.
- Trying to fill every gap (because you hear every need in the office)

- Not feeling good enough
- Forgetting things
- Patience

- Trying to  be a perfectionist with everything - it's my personality type, but I'm working on it.
- Procrastinating and overthinking - getting better. Need to take more of my own advice.

- Saying Yes when I mean or should say No.

- Not enough training

- Church gossip  
- People who do not stay in their lanes

- Self pity
- Thinking I am too old
- Not listening

- Not delegating enough

- Panic, when people don't carry out tasks or answer emails.
- Get annoyed, when tasks are not done.

- Unnecessary fears and anxiety
- Being more rigorous
- Mentoring and supporting more people

- Tendency to overwork!

- Overthinking
- Over planning
- Over reliance on myself

- App and tech distraction

- Do what I like doing first
- Withdraw

- Long hours
- Last to book holidays
- Emailing at home

- Being a control freak and being rubbish at delegation.

- Typing instead of talking!
- Not always finishing the week with a to do list for next week. I keep forgetting how much easier it makes Mondays!
- Reading work emails late at night on my phone, then worrying all night

- Being interrupted and not finish what you started
- Not reading email properly

- Worry about the church and future

- Doing things  in my own strength
- Being an achiever not being a slave to the to do list (Trello / slack )

- Staying late to finish stuff
- Becoming too task focussed instead of people focussed

- Working beyond my hours

- Starting late

- Always saying yes

- Not letting go

- Taking on too much

- Putting too much pressure on myself
 
- Listening to negativity / gossip

- Rushing and delaying

- Time management erratic, intolerance of less enthusiastic colleagues.

- Saying yes, putting back to back meetings in diary, getting distracted

- Getting distracted and putting off jobs you need to do!

- Trying to do too many things. I need to learn what can be dropped

- Being too flexible, towards the urgent tasks and not following through on the planned 'important but non-urgent' tasks

- Not starting in prayer/scripture on a daily basis enough
- A reluctance to delegate in case it burdens others.
- Apologising when there is no need to - including when I am just doing my job!

- Becoming frustrated when the 'unexpected' makes a full workload even more difficult to fulfil well.

- Holding too many things in my head.

- Stepping in too readily to help out.

- Lack of understanding around the role - people see the "added layer" of governance as often frustrating.
- Lack of willingness from others to embrace policies if in place.

- Long hours
- Over control things
- Withdraw from people, staff and volunteers

- Long coffee breaks
- Make lots of notes but lose my notebook.

- Try and control everything!
- Lose my notes
- Withdraw and get stressed

- Habit of long hours
- Too much focus on the details and not on the bigger picture!
- Plan, replan

- Feeling that you have to be available 24/7 to anyone who wants to email, text or call me.  

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