“He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.’”
–Matthew 15:24
This is Part 1 in a series I’m doing called Divine Productivity Hacks – tips from the life of Jesus to improve our work.
My friend used to say that there are moments in the Bible where Jesus sounds like a complete jerk. I usually respond with this evangelical reflex where I defend Jesus, but one time he showed me a story in the Bible and I didn’t know how to respond.
There’s a story where Jesus and his disciples are walking and a Canaanite woman called to Him to save her daughter. Jesus ignores her for some time before the disciples approach Him about it. Finally, when the woman talks to Jesus, He says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” He shuts her down.
I was taken aback when I first encountered this verse; that is, until I saw Jesus wield a skill I wish I had.
Jesus knew His mission. He knew what He was suppose to do and who He came for, and He shut down the things that didn’t fall within those parameters. In other words, He gave His work clear boundaries.
Today, we lack this skill. In some ways, we’re too nice. We don’t know how to say no. But in other ways, we just believe we can do it all.
In a world of excess and stress, we pile too many things on our plate and increase our workload.
As David Allen noted in his book, Getting Things Done, we used to know exactly what we had to do in the old days. With machines, you rotate the levers. With farms, you harvest. With sheep, you shepherd. Work was self-explanatory.
But today, our work takes many different shapes and sizes. We no longer have the clear boundaries we used to. As David Allen again noted, what this does to our work is create more of it.
We benefit from creating boundaries for our work. Not only does it give us more focus on the task at hand, but it also lightens the load of all that we have to do.
For these reasons, Jesus didn’t keep the boundaries of His work obscure. He clarified them and kept them at the forefront of His mind.
Here are some questions to help develop the boundaries of your work:
- Who is this work for?
- Is this work urgent (need to do now), important (have to do, but not now), or both? Or is it unnecessary?
- What is the one goal I’m focusing on with this work? Can I fully concentrate on that one goal until I accomplish it?
- Am I the only one to accomplish it? Can I delegate it?
That is just a glimpse of how to develop boundaries for your work. The point is, without boundaries in place, you’ll end up getting distracted with unnecessary work. Make clear definitions and stay focused on the task at hand.