The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 034 – Practical Tech Hacks That Will Free Up Your Time To Lead—An Interview with Geek Pastor Wayne Cordova
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast, a podcast all about leadership, change, and personal growth. The goal? To help you lead like never before, in your church or in your business. And now your host, Carrie Newhoff. - Well, hey everybody, and welcome to episode 34 of the podcast. My name's Carrie Newhoff, and I am so glad that you joined us today, and I really hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. Well, we do all kinds of interviews on this podcast. I mean, people, we all kind of know the name of in church world, like Andy Stanley, Perry Noble, Mark Batterson was on recently. I mean, Tony Morgan's been on the podcast, Casey Graham. I mean, Carapal, there's been a lot of people who are sort of well known, and then some people maybe you've never heard of. We've gotten a lot of traction on Josh Gagnon's episode, or he was episode 17, and Dom Russo, a lot of people have never heard of Dom, Pastor in Canada, who's doing an incredible job leading change, and this is a guy you might have heard of. His name is Wayne Cordova, and we have a lot in common. We both worked in radio way back in the day, and we talk about that, but he's also known as geek pastor. He is just like totally a geek guy, and is here to help us with technology. Now, this is gonna be a different kind of episode. We're not talking about writing or about leading a church, although he leads a church or helps lead a church. We're gonna talk about technology, and what I love about this interview is Wayne does it on a 101, 201, 301 levels. So for those of you who just hate your phones, hate technology, it's like it's a necessary evil, Wayne's gonna speak into that. For those of you who are like, "You know, I kinda like the latest technology or that," he's gonna help you out, and then for those of you who are like total geeks, he's gonna be really helpful. And the goal of this podcast, I think, is just to help you use technology so it helps you lead better. Like, you can spend all your time just, you know, trying to figure out how to do stuff, or you can find some hacks, some productivity hacks, and some tech hacks that are gonna help you lead better. And that's what Wayne is gonna do. The show notes are gonna be really, really important on this episode because there's so many links. You're gonna listen to it. Your mind's probably gonna melt, and you're gonna go, "I can't keep track." That's why we have show notes. So just go to karaenohoff.com/episode34, and you will find all the links that Wayne talks about. Plus, he's got a special landing page that we are gonna talk about as well. So now, I'm gonna tell you about something I didn't talk about in the interview, which is like a couple of my favorite things. So one of my very favorite podcast apps, in fact, the one that I use to listen to the podcast that I listen to, and sometimes even this show, is an app called the Overcast app. It's like, you know, the weather, overcast. And it's really cool. I think it's free. If it's not free, it's like not terribly expensive. And here's what's really cool about overcast. I think it's probably a better way of organizing your podcast maybe than Apple has on its app, although there's nothing wrong with Apple's app. But what's really cool is when you click on to a podcast, the show notes are embedded. So if you, you know, subscribe to my podcast, and then you start to scroll down on it on overcast, all the show notes are right there, including all the links. So you can do everything right off your phone. So we'll link to that in the show notes. It's just called the Overcast app. I love it. It's a friend of mine pointed it out last year. It's pretty much what I use all the time. And you can speed up, slow down. And what I love is you can go back 30 seconds. It's got a 30 second button. So you can just go back 30 seconds or multiples of 30. If you're like, what did he say again? You just go back really easily. So you can try that out if you don't like it. Just delete it and, you know, whatever. But hopefully that helps you. And I want to say, speaking of podcasts and apps, thank you to all of you awesome people who keep leaving reviews. There's been a bunch of reviews as I've been getting ready to bring this episode to air. And I just want to say thank you. I do take the time to read everyone. We're up to, as of recording this a few weeks ago, 162 reviews on the iTunes store, which is awesome. So thank you to Sean O'Kellie who said, this is absolutely the best and most helpful practical church leadership podcast I listened to. Thanks so much, Sean, for that. And I think I'll read one more. This is from a guy he just left a review. Didn't leave his name. It's just dynamic, fresh, innovative. He says, this is by far the best leadership podcast to tune into. I'm a student pastor and I highly encourage our youth leaders to find time to invest into this. And a shout out to all the student pastors who listen to this podcast. Carry his incredibly humble, oh, except when he reads his own reviews, and engaging to listen to. And how in the world does it get better than weekly? Hey, I really appreciate that. 'Cause it is work to make sure, a little bit of hustle, to make sure this gets out weekly. So good every single week. Big thanks to Lead Like Never before. So appreciate that and to all you student pastors and senior leaders and family pastors who listen, thank you. And I know there are business people who listen as well. So when you leave a review, it really means a lot. It's sort of the fuel that keeps me going. It's great motivation and it helps get the news out there. So you can subscribe for free. Please leave a review on iTunes, on Stitcher, or on Tune in radio. So are you ready to geek out even at an intro level? Here's my interview with Wayne Cordova. It is just really awesome to have Wayne Cordova on the podcast today. Wayne, welcome. Oh, Carrie, thanks for having me. Yeah, this is cool. So we got like some common bonds here. You used to do radio. I used to do radio back a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago. Come on, give yourself some credit, you know? Yeah, okay. You're back in the day. You're right, not AM. No, it was AM. I was only ever on AM radio. And it was like my hometown. I walked into the radio station when I was 16 and I'm like, "Hey, would you hire me?" And they did, which was crazy. And we had like turntables before turntables were cool. They were just old technology, but it was a little radio station. They couldn't afford anything. But then I worked in Toronto as well. When I first started, I was still cutting tape and keeping it together and all that. All the CD business, that came after I started, but yeah, I was still cutting real to real tape and matching the camera. Real to real tape. I did a lot of real to real editing as well, splicing and you actually cut it with a razor blade and then you put like a little bit of tape on there and all that. So that's fun. You're also a pastor. Give us a little bit. And by the way, it was a thrill to be on your podcast a little while ago too. Oh, that was amazing. Highest rated Geek Pastor podcast ever. And my mom really enjoyed it. (laughing) That's great. That's great. Yeah, and I won the only podcast award that this podcast has ever won was an award that you gave it last year. Your Wayne's Choice Award for best podcast of 2014. And there you go. Man, I tell you, it was, you had some competition there, but once the Academy got together to vote, you won by and large. I mean, it was amazing. That's great. So it's an award-winning podcast now, thanks to guys like you, Wayne. So hey, tell us a little bit about yourself or listeners. Some listeners will know you, you do a Geek Pastor and tell us a little bit about what you do. Oh, well, great. Well, I am a pastor at Crosspoint Church in Spring Hill, Florida. We're a church plant, bought to celebrate nine years of being in the community and serving and just really loving our community and the name of Jesus really loving what I get to do there. I'm Tina's husband and that's really kind of how I have been known for a long time, you know, is oh, you're Tina's husband until we had Emily, our daughter. And now I'm just Emily's dad. Emily's our four year old. She has, she's got some special needs and has taught us a lot about the amazing grace of God. But Tina and I are going to celebrate 13 years this year. That's cool. And I love it. I love my family. If you end up following me on Twitter, you're going to, you know, you end up hearing a lot about my family and a lot about Jesus and hopefully in mixed order, you know. Yeah, yeah. That's what I get to do. You know, for the most part, I spend a huge chunk of my time in ministry, doing student ministry before God called me into church planting and a longtime friend of mine, Paul Castelli, he was an old college. Well, he's my, he was my best friend, college roommate. We'd always kept in touch together when it came to ministry and kind of everybody in ministry needs that one person that they call at the end of a long week or a tough Sunday. And he was that guy for me. And one Sunday, you know, I had called him and said, Hey, I quit my job in ministry. I really believe the guy wants me to plant the church. And he goes, Oh, wow, that's awesome. A couple of weeks later, he calls me, tells me the same exact thing. And yeah, and it's a much longer story than that. But after a lot of prayer and just hearing from God, we kind of came together and planted the church out in Spring Hill, Florida and got just been blessing in huge, amazing ways and opened in a couple of years to move on to some property. And we closed on that last year and now we're going to move into the building phase. And so it's really exciting. - That is. So your husband, a father, and a church planter and your self-described geek. - Absolutely. - And that's what we're going to drill down on today. What does that mean? What does it mean? I mean, we're doing this interview by video. We got Star Wars stuff all behind you. - I do. I got a little Star Wars, a little bit of Doctor Who. And of course, we're on Max, you know, so totally a geek. Well, I think a geek is someone who's just obsessively really, really into something. You know what I'm saying? Some people are fans of things, but I think a geek is really, really into something almost to the point of obsession. And it could be anything. It could be sci-fi geeks, it could be comic geeks, technical geeks, and I'm kind of all of those wrapped in one. There's sports geeks, there's music. I really think that anybody could be a geek as long as they're really into something. And for myself, I'm into all these mixed areas and genres, but I started using the term geek pastor to describe myself because pastor is another one of those titles that applies to multiple areas. So you have student pastors, lead pastors, executive pastors, I'm a geek pastor. (laughing) And over the last few years, I've seriously been geeking out over technology and productivity and helping others in ministry kind of get the work, the actual work of ministry done. - Right, and that takes us to a great place because I'm sure there's two kinds of leaders listening, right? There's the leader who's like, I'm a total geek, I love this stuff. I hope he's got some good tips. He better be on his game. And then there are other people, you know, who are like, I don't like technology at all. It's a necessary evil. I just use it because I have to. I see, I don't know whether I would qualify as a geek. I mean, I really like technology. I really, you know, I try to use it as best as I can. But tell us a little bit about technology. And we're gonna approach this, by the way, this podcast into two sections. So one is sort of for the beginner and then for the geeks, hang on, we're gonna geek out toward the end if you listen that long. And we wanna do like just some tips that will help everybody because I do think that technology can really help. And for a lot of people, and it's not necessarily age dependent, it's just not like, it's not something that they're really into. So how does tech, how can technology help you? I know that sounds like a pretty baseline question, but there's some people who, you know, still have eggs as their avatars on Twitter or, you know, that little cut out profile thing on Twitter like, oh, I hate email or whatever. So how does technology, how can it help you become a better leader? - Well, it's huge for me. Being able to get things done through technology and productive systems helps me actually see projects through and get to what really matters. See, the thing for me is I don't wanna be obsessed about the technology in my life. I just know the truth that ministry is really about people. It's really about building relationships. But as usual, it's the actual work. It's the tasks, it's the to-do's. It's the things that we have to get done to take up our time and attention. And a lot of times we can breeze through a day of, quote, ministry, but have never left the office or have never left our desk. And so that's the thing for me, I realized a while ago that we go to conferences and we get big vision. We get big ideas to take to our city and just take 'em for Christ. But seldom are we kind of top the, well, here's the how. And so for me, technology really comes into play with that because I've really enjoyed helping other pastors and leaders understand that how part highlighting tools that we can use to accomplish the work of ministry better so that we can focus on what matters most. And that's where technology has been for me is that the love for that technology hasn't been kind of the idle, per se, but it's been the tool. And as long as it remains the tool, I think it's a real positive thing and it's a real helpful thing and the truth is shortcuts are beautiful. - Well, and you raised a really good point. I hadn't actually thought about that, but like nobody actually teaches you technology. I mean, if you go to seminary or college, it's just one of those self-taught skills. And I think some people are early adopters and they love this stuff and they kind of geek out. And then other people are just like, yeah, I'm just, I barely have the minimum to get by. And it is all self-taught. It really is because nobody teaches you, even if you start a new job like in a new church or a new organization, they're not running you through Tech 101. I mean, you have to figure this out on your own. So that's interesting. So let's start with the beginner camp. People who are like, is this just necessary evil? I don't even like computers. What happened to steno pads and all that stuff? What are some practical tools that get stetner, right? What are some practical tools that can help people who are at like Tech 101 get more effective? And I think this is the goal, get more efficient in ministry. - Absolutely. The thing for me, I really feel that the first thing that I recommend for anybody when it comes to productivity and ministry is to really decide on the to-do list app or system that works for you. - Okay. - My friend, Paul, lead pastor over at Crosspoint, he always tells me, and he tells anybody, when they come up to him and they go, "What kind of Bible should I use? What kind of Bible should I read?" He always says, "The kind that you'll read." You know, I mean, that's-- - Great answer. - And that's a great answer. And so for me, it's the same thing. Well, what kind of system or what kind of to-do list should I use? Well, the kind that you will actually use. And before you go spending money on anything, before you decide to buy the high dollar stuff, 'cause there's some really high dollar technology and apps out there, really decide on, what's the system that's best for you? For me, I try my best to follow David Allen's Getting Things Done productivity system. It's a great system. It's very simple. It starts with one thing. It's an inbox. Everything needs to go into one place so that you can process it later. And it's an excellent book. You can find videos online, whatever kind of learner you are. It's a great basis to get things done. And then there's a number of great apps that are out there. I know you use Wonderlist. - I do, yeah, these days. I used to use things by Culture Code. - Yeah, I use things now. - Oh, dude, yeah, okay. Yeah, I switched to Wonderlist. Number one, our team did, and I kind of like it. It works okay. - Wonderlist is great when it comes to Teams. I use things for myself, 'cause the truth is, I am the techiest person on our staff right now. - Sure, sure. - And so it's just, for me, I use things. It's kind of like a solo app. And I love it because it syncs through multiple speaking platforms. It works on my MacBook. It works on my iPhone, my iPad, that kind of thing. And a bit of warning, I'm also an Apple Geek. So I'll try to think through some other alternatives for Android and Windows, you know? - Hey, let me just interject for a second and just let people know, you're gonna go through a lot of apps today. And like already we've made like three references. Every single episode we have show notes. And these are show notes that are really gonna be helpful. I don't have an episode number quite yet, but I mean, by the end of this podcast, when I sort of tag it, when we're done, we'll have an episode number and all that stuff. But if you just go to my blog, carrynewhough.com, you'll find the show notes for this episode. And man, I'll tell you, that'll be really helpful. And you were super helpful because you've already given us all these links that you think you're gonna talk about. And so if you're like, what was that? David Allen's like productivity system? Link will be right in the show notes. Exactly. And again, that's why I'm a huge fan of your podcast is part of the reason is your show notes. A sign of a great podcast I really do believe is being able to inform people as they listen or after they listen. So I love each other. - It's credit to the team and credit to Jessica who really helps a lot with those show notes. She does all of that pulling it together. So I have a great team behind us. So thank you team. - Thank you team. - So I will do my best for all my, you know, Android and Windows brethren to help you out. A lot of these apps are universal and you can find them on multiple platforms, right? - Yeah, that's true. And does things work on multiple platforms? Or is that an Apple thing? - Things is mainly an Apple thing. But there's a lot of what I call kind of things clones that are out there. - Gotcha. - But truth be told, I mean, it's stuff like Wonderlist. You know, you really can't beat that. - That's everywhere. - It's a very simple to-do list app. And some people use the to-do list apps on Evernote, which is great because Evernote's awesome or capturing to-do list meeting notes, images. And here's the thing, I'm a technology fan, but the to-do list can be analog, okay? You can have pencil and paper, pen and paper. - Post-it notes. - Post-it notes. - Let me tell you about my post-it notes. I love, I love post-it notes. And about a few months ago, I wrote a blog post on geekpassure.com about this little piece of paper. You can just download it from the website. I call it the Post-it note planner and it's a simple grid, you print it out and you can place to-do list. And it just says things I need to accomplish today. And the squares fit exactly for a Post-it note. And I have only a spaces for about four or five because in reality, I mean, if you're trying to get more than four things done in one day, - Oh yeah. - You just can't. But I put that on there and it's just really neat. You just print it out. And so if you want the satisfaction of writing something down and especially with a Post-it note when you're done with it, you can rip it off and crumple it and throw it away. I mean, that's conquering your to-do list right there. - You know, it's really interesting too, Wayne. And again, all this will be in the show notes. But like, I think you're right. Productivity is really important and whether you use Wonderlist or something else. Like I use it because my assistant can add stuff into my inbox that shows up. No, not my Wonderlist inbox. But I know sometimes there are like super techy people who feel completely overwhelmed. And now there's a thread going around online that basically says, okay, you've got your Wonderlist or your things or Evernote or whatever. But every day, just write down three things on a piece of paper so you make sure you get it done 'cause it can be overwhelming. But I find that that's super helpful to have an on multiple device and that's what's so nice to watch the evolution of technology. You know, it used to be, well, I have to log into my computer and now it's like, nope, I put it on my phone, shows up on my iPad, shows up on my iMac, shows up on my MacBook Air, shows up maybe one day on your Apple Watch, you know, those sorts of things. And so you put it in one place and it shows up everywhere. And if you get the apps that actually connect with your team, if you have an assistant or you're trying to do project management, it just sinks things across your devices but also across their devices so that everybody stays on the same page. - And I wouldn't waste my money on anything that wasn't cross-platform. I really would encourage people that, you know, if you're gonna buy an app, if you're actually gonna spend money on an app, make sure that, you know, especially if it's an Apple app, make sure there's a little plus sign next to it because that means it's a universal app and you could use it on an iPad and an iPhone and I did not know that, that's the little symbol. - Yeah, that little plus symbol. It'll let you know it's a universal app. And I mean, really, there's so many great free apps that are out there that if you're gonna spend the money on some apps and I do think that it's worth it. I think the productivity is worth our money because, you know, how much is your time really worth, you know? But I would just pay attention to that kind of stuff if it was cross-platform, it's great. - I think things is like 50 bucks, but like Wonderlist has a free version. I have the pro, but it's what, like $6 or something? It's not that much money. - It's not that much money, especially if you're gonna spread it across, working with a team because that's the important thing is really getting the most bang for your buck. And things is a little expensive because if you're gonna get the app, it's a separate purchase. So you really should be committed, you know? Don't make that first thing out. - So why do you start with productivity or why do you start with like a to-do list? That's just basic organization. - I think it's just, yes, it's a basic organization thing, but if you don't have a system to begin with, if you don't have a way that you like to get things done, if you don't know that, then in reality, I don't think you're gonna be a good steward of God's money by spending money on the next best thing. The app isn't gonna make you more productive. It's the discipline of being productive. That's gonna make you more productive. It's having that discipline. So figure out the system first, figure out what will work for you. And then there's tons of apps out there that will come. I mean, depending on whatever kind of productivity system you use, you could just run a search on that on an app store and there'll be a ton of apps that support it. If you like the Commodore method where you're mostly timing yourself on every activity, you know, those apps will pop up, just search for that. If you type in GTD on any app store, tons of apps will show up. - What's GTD? - Getting things done. The whole-- - That's what it is. - The whole, I mean, and it is a movement. There are some folks in there that are-- - Clearly I'm not a part of it. - Oh, okay. - But that's good. That's good. Okay, well, now let's talk about the Pomodoro method 'cause that's something my wife uses. I have other colleagues just explain that 'cause I haven't done it. I'm just not disciplined enough, but I want to super disciplined. - Okay. I mean, in reality, it's about, I've tried it for myself many times. And I just feel, I have a really good friend of my name, Mike Stortz, who's a youth pastor out in Leesburg, Florida. He uses it. I don't, I can't do it. For me, I guess I'm kind of, I'm very interruptible. (laughs) And so, you know, I do get a lot of knocks on my doors and I don't mind that because that's kind of my love language. But, (laughs) - So what's the Pomodoro method just in case people hadn't heard of that? What, it's just describing-- - It's mainly a, it's a time system where you will allow yourself a certain amount of time of uninterrupted focus on a particular item or a particular task or a project. And once it's done, it's done. So you really kind of play and beat the clock when it comes to accomplishing a task. And I think it works great for folks that maybe they're in office settings where they're focused mainly on tasks. But, you know, I can't walk into a meeting with somebody and set the timer up and go, okay, here you go. You got 30 minutes. (laughs) - But you can try things like standing meetings. No, I think my wife sets it for 20 or 25 minutes. And then like basically you have 20, 25 minutes to get a task done and the timer goes. And then you switch tasks to the next thing. - Exactly. I think after three, you get a 15 minute break to stretch. But apparently it really increases your productivity. Like you just get hyper-focused. - I really think it works. And if you're somebody who is disciplined in that way in that area, you know, I love a good deadline. But sometimes when I get down to those final minutes, they could kind of stress me out a little bit. And now I'm more stressed about the stress than I am about the product. - Right, right. Okay, so this is the beginner level. So we've already talked about a really start with a really good to-do list. And there are multiple options free and paid. Look for cross devices. If you're really looking for productivity, I think the Pomodoro technique is great if I'm pronouncing that right. And then do you have another suggestion for somebody who's just starting out and maybe afraid of technology or like doesn't like it or thinks it can't help? - Oh yeah, I mean, I really think, you know, for somebody who's afraid of technology or just kind of start out, I really think that, you know, working on how you choose to do email is a big thing. Email is something everybody has. You have to have it really in order to maintain just kind of like a base inbox of, you know, people need to get in a hole or you need, they need to get in touch with you. You know, I always, whenever I talk to somebody and they say, you know, I don't have email or don't do email, you know, I always encourage them to kind of just get started with something simple like Gmail. You know, Gmail really kind of allows you to use a real simple platform. What I love about it is that it's fully searchable. So a lot of times where I don't want things to clutter my hard drive, but I'm okay with it being in an archived email because I can go back and I can just search for anything. You know, I just type in Easter because we're around that time. I want to pull up everything that kind of happened over the last couple of years. So I make sure I'm not missing anything or nothing slipping through the cracks. But really kind of starting off with a baseline email system that works for you again. It's like, you don't have to use what comes in your computer. You don't have to use Apple, you don't have to use Apple Mail. There are a lot of other things that are out there. And I recommend somebody who's just kind of, they're kind of timid about it. Dive into Gmail, talk to somebody that you know, they can actually take your church email and put it in Gmail. - Yes. - So that it works a little bit easier? - And that works on multiple levels. When we launched our church seven years ago, we went with Gmail, we went with Google Docs. It was super helpful. And it was kind of in beta at the time. Like not a lot of people had Gmail addresses, but you know, we've grown, we now have a couple thousand people who call our church home, church, you know, attendance of a thousand on the weekend. And Gmail has really worked last year. We actually upgraded to, forget what they called it. It was like a big production, but we're now, we have our own dedicated server inside Google and everything secure. - Right. - But like, you know, my address, see new Hofit Connects as church, goes directly into Gmail rather than into some other thing. And it is searchable and it's really easy for teamwork. So I just use the, like I use the mailbox app on my devices, but when I'm actually on a computer, I just go to the web based browser. Is that the best thing to do with Gmail? Or like other Gmail has apps you can use. - They have apps you can use. - And I genuinely would recommend just going on. And if you're doing email on your desktop, you know, or on your laptop, go through the web browser. There's a couple of other apps that are out there. One of the apps that I use for my Gmail is an app called Airmail. - Oh yeah, I've done that for a bit. - And it's okay, it just kind of does it. I mean, email is one of those things where, I wouldn't spend a lot of time trying to perfect the actual art of how you receive the email. It's more about what you do with it afterwards and telling it where to go and that kind of thing. And just another app for beginners that I'd recommend is Evernote. - Oh yeah. - And the reason why I recommend it for a beginner is, is that when you open it up, it looks a little bit like email because there's folders and there's places you can put things. But even if you just use it to just simply take notes for meetings or to capture images, like you go to Home Depot or something and you're like, "Oh, I'd like to maybe purchase this one day." You can snap that picture and Evernote can actually read the writing that's on any kind of picture or PDF that you use. - It's true. Now, is that just the pro version or is that the base version? - The pro version does, I think PDFs and everything. I think the base version will do it in some way. I've had success with it on images that I've taken like pictures and that kind of thing. But the pro version does PDFs and kind of gives you more storage and all that. But really kind of for just the baseline thing, if you know how to just put something in Evernote, tag it with something that's home improvement or sermons for sermon notes, it's great for me. - Yeah, and that's what I do. Like I'm always working on a couple of books or like blog ideas for my blog and I've used Evernote for probably three or four years. And first I started with the free version then I upgraded a year or two ago. And again, it's not terribly expensive. I don't know what it costs, but it's not like horrible by any stretch. And you're exactly right. Like sometimes business cards. I've got like a guy who does my lawnmower and I just scanned his business card in and then I'm like lawnmower guy, tap it in and he pops up or you really like this restaurant. You take a picture of the sign or something, you type in great restaurant and then you just search great restaurant, pops up. It's like, oh yeah, that place, that's right. That was awesome. - I always joke around, I say the Evernote saves my back because I no longer have a Costanza-sized wallet. - Well, because I scan everything through Evernote and it's just real super, real easy. - And again, you can access that at multiple levels. It can just be a place to dump thoughts. And the idea is you never lose it, right? The problem is in a hard drive system, you put it in a word doc, I know people used to use word docs or something like that. And then you can't find it. Or you set up this complicated directory system on your hard drive or in Dropbox or something like that. You can't find it. And in Evernote, if you put it in, it's just like, boom, it's there. And it's infinitely searchable, syncs across devices and it's saved my life, numerous, numerous times. - I love it. And it's a great, if you're a beginner, it's a great way to start. - Yeah, it's not hard. And then you can get like to graduate level. There are people who just like organize absolutely everything and it's got functionality. I'll never figure out, but it's great. Okay, so those are some great suggestions. So basic email, like Gmail is, I think a much better way to do email. I tend to agree with you on that one. Evernote, anything else for beginners that just sort of like, hey, if you're gonna jump in, this is a great shallow end of the pool to jump into, which actually eventually moves into a deep end because you can do a lot with those things. - And I love the deep end. The one thing I would also tell somebody for a beginner, and it's an app that you don't have, it's one of the things you don't have to get this specific app, but my app of choice is called JotNot. It's a scanner app. So, if you have any kind of scanner app on your phone, this will save you time. Because one of the things that I learned the hard way in ministry was to make whoever's in charge of the finance is your friend. (all laughing) And you want that person to know that you're responsible. You want that person to know that you're on top of it. And listen, even it's just one of those things where, when you're trying to keep track of finances, you're trying to keep track of spending, it's a great tool because here's what I do with JotNot. And there's only one thing I do with it. And it's got a little space on my dock, on my phone. And the one thing I do with it is I scan receipts with it. And so, if I go somewhere and I'm having, maybe I'm having lunch with somebody, or maybe I have to make a trip for something that we need on Sunday, what I do immediately is I take this, take the receipt, take a picture of it. It scans the receipt. I mean, it just, it makes a really nice, crisp, white copy of the receipt. And it only takes about 30 seconds to do it. And then I hit send, and it goes straight to our finance director. And they, this is the app, this is the finance director's best friend. And it makes me look like a rock star. It makes me look so responsible that I wish I could go back in time and hand this app to 22 year old youth pastor me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And say, do this because this is something that will help keep you organized. And then you don't have to have it in your mind anymore. Now, let me ask you, why Jotknot? 'Cause I've got like, I don't know, I probably have four receipt apps on my phone, of which I use none, you know, 'cause I'm just so brilliant. But what, why Jotknot? Okay, so the initial truth of that is, it was the first app that I found out about and I started trying. And then the second part of that is though, there's ever no integration with that. So what I do is I scan it, I send it once to our finance director and then if it's a receipt. And then I also, if it's something that's an expensive mine, if it's something that maybe it's tax deductible or maybe it's, you know, maybe it's a home expense, I send it to the appropriate Evernote folder and I have it in its skin and I tag it taxes. And then right around tax time, I pull up everything on Evernote that's tag taxes. And here's all my receipts, you know, whether it's a home receipt or a work receipt or anything like that. And I love that. The Evernote integration alone, anything that's got Evernote integration, I'll buy up or I'll use. Okay, that's super smart because I've been doing it this way. I have a Gmail folder that I just call taxes for the current year, you know, 2015 taxes or whatever. But that's a much better way to do it because it's instantly searchable and everything shows up and they don't have to sort through individual things. Okay, so that's anything else on beginners, that is so helpful. I think that's a good start. I think if you're a beginner, once you start kind of fiddling on Evernote, you're about to move into the next level, you know? Yeah, yeah. So this is good because, I mean, it's a to-do list. It's basic email integration. It's a way to capture everything and forget nothing. It's like receipts. By that point, if you start to use technology in that way, you're way more organized than you ever were in the adult world. So that's great. So let's go now and we'll organize the show notes this way too, like beginner apps and then mid-level and then geek out. Oh great, we'll get to in a few minutes. But let's talk about intermediate. So people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got Gmail. I got this email. So yeah, come on, tell me something I don't know. And you've already taught me some stuff I don't know, but, and I thought I was a bit geeky. But anyway, two or three intermediate tools, or maybe you got a few more that can help mid-level tech people who are pretty comfortable with their devices and their phones and technology get better and then sort of explain to us how they work and what the benefits are. Okay, so we talked about email when it came to beginners. But one of the things that I love, and I consider it an intermediate tool because you need to learn it a little bit. It's my favorite email app that I've ever used. It's called Dispatch. And Dispatch is a great app. I did a whole blog post and podcast episode on email by the way, and so maybe we could throw that into it. We'll link to that in the show notes for sure. I called it Inbox Hero. 'Cause so often we strive. That's a little foreigner reference. Yeah, you know, and a lot of times too, we strive for that Inbox Zero. We want that number so bad, but we could get really trapped by our Inbox. And I rely on an app called Dispatch. And here's the thing, it's one app that I can turn into, turn to my email. And I can take my email and I can turn it into a task in things or omni-focus or wonder list. I can take an email, literally click it and send it as a to-do. And it stores the whole thing and it lets me know in context this is what I need. And I do that all the time. And sometimes I just make a to-do list item that says reply, or sometimes I make a full-on project out of it. But out of one app, I can send it to another app. I can also turn my email into a calendar item. And so literally just by clicking an email, I could send it to Fantastical, or I could send it to BusyCal or whatever calendar you're using at the time, you could do that. You can save the email on Dropbox. You could save it to Evernote, make it a reminder, use it as a draft file, a text message, literally. From one app, you can take your email and send it anywhere on your phone or anywhere in any of the devices that you actually use. It's pretty amazing. - That is so helpful. So basically it gets you to zero a lot faster because one of the basic productivity tips is don't use your inbox as a to-do list, which is what a lot of people do, which is why there's 52 emails that are just left there. You've read them. And then you only have to do another productivity principle that I try to follow is touch something once, right? So you're not touching it eight times. It's like, what's that email again? Oh yeah, I'm just gonna leave it there. Oh, so it dispatches them to whatever device or whatever app you wanna put them into or whatever you wanna do with it. - Exactly, and so just like with getting things done, what you wanna do is you wanna have one place where everything goes and then dispatch it to something else so that it can get done. And like you said, you use Wonderless and you can use multiple team members with that. Well, maybe you receive the email that you need somebody to respond to rather than forward them an email and let that kind of hang in their inbox forever. You can immediately make that a task item that they can go and create action on. And I love it. It's great when if you're delegating a project to somebody or more than anything, if you just wanna have a calendar item where all the details are in that calendar item, it's right there and you pull it up. And I don't know how dispatch does it, but they have a real amazing interface that when you go in there, just with one click, you go right back to the original email, you get all the details and you can move on it. - Well, that's brilliant because my assistant, that's exactly what she does, is she puts all the details for my events in my calendar. So sometimes when I'm en route to an event or flying somewhere to speak somewhere, it's right there in my calendar and I don't have to go digging. But I mean, she cuts and pastes that manually into the calendar and I'm so grateful. But again, it's saving time so that you can focus on what matters most. And if you're a content creator, like I am, you wanna spend as much time creating content or you wanna meet people, you wanna do that, you wanna lead your team, you get the chance to do that. - Absolutely. - Great. Okay, so dispatch. - Dispatch. - Okay. The other one I would talk about is text expander. - Okay. - And text expander is my best friend in the way of technology. I mean, we are buddies and it's a great app. I have one simple rule in productivity, okay? This is a personal rule for me. If I have to do it more than twice, I don't wanna do it again. And so I apply that to my technology. And it's just one of those things where, I wrote a post about text expander on the GeekPastor blog too. - Well, let's link to it. We'll link to it in the show notes. - We'll do that as well. And you can tell I'm really excited about it because this, I mean, he really is my best buddy here. Text bander. - Oh, it's a person now. That's great. - Oh, it's a little person. - You guys are close. - I call him. - You guys are close. Text expander, I need you and he comes up. Here's what it is. It's a utility app. Here's the cool thing. It's a app on the desktop and it's a keyboard on the iPhone now. So iPhone, IOSA just recently introduced this new thing where you can download third party keyboards. And all these keyboards have different functionalities and different things. Well, text expander is now a desktop app and it's a keyboard. And here's what it is. It's a utility that enables you to insert chunks of text, meaning like long paragraphs or internet code, outlines. And it does it in the form of what text expander calls snippets. You do it by typing in short abbreviations or code names. So like, for example, for me, I have a real simple snippet called date and it inserts the current date whenever I type in an abbreviation. So for me, the abbreviation is dot date. So I put period date. And then it inserts the current date. Once you start using it, you can create a bunch of snippets and you begin to get to know how it really can become a big part of your workflow. So for me, I don't, there's sometimes, I don't know if you've ever written a reply back on an email or if you've ever written a piece about something that maybe your church is doing that you look back and you go, wow, that was really well-written, you know? Or man, this is the best way that I can say this. And for me, I answer a lot of the same questions. Sometimes, especially when folks who want to know information about our church or they want to find out, you know, something important about, you know, our upcoming baptism or something. I create a snippet. I put it into text expander. I type in the abbreviation. And so I use the letter X a lot in my abbreviation because the letter X doesn't come up a lot. So for baptism, BPX. I have a great description of what baptism is. And every time I type in BPX, it shows up on the screen. This description of baptism is. Okay, so everybody's on the same page. Basically, you're writing about baptism and it could be like a 12 paragraph theological description of that you've taken hours to craft or it could just be a simple, hey, this is how we do baptism at our church, blah, blah, blah. But you type in BPX and that beautifully worded paragraph shows up in all of its glory. So that's kind of a take on like, I think Gmail still has canned responses because we find the same thing my assistant and I get the same questions over and over again. And sometimes you know, you really work on a response and then you can save it in canned responses but I find sometimes they disappear. So text expander is a way to do it without like 15 clicks. Right? To find the canned response. - It's great, yeah. I mean like you can do cut and paste if you want to. It's a great free option. IRS on and I'm sure that Android phones do the same thing. They have a keyboard shortcut area where you could type in certain shortcuts. It works the same way. But with text expander, it goes in even further. There's a fill in snippet that you can create where I do this on a weekly basis for our weekly Bible verse. We put up daily Bible verses rather, you know, across point when you follow us on Twitter and I type in MBR which is Monday Bible reading and it pops up and then there's empty boxes for me to fill in what the Bible verse is, what the hashtag is for that week and what the link should be for the Bible verse. - And that's crazy. And it's just a real simple time saving thing that allows me to do it every week in about 10 minutes I've got an entire week completed and it's ready and good to go. - Wow. Okay, that is, you've got me sold 'cause I've tried different versions of that but I haven't done the text expander thing because you're right. A lot of ministry and a lot of leadership is actually just to answer the same questions. It's why businesses and churches have FAQ pages, you know, frequently ask questions 'cause everybody asks the same question and then you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Every time you respond or and just to be clear, you make up the abbreviation. So if like PBX doesn't work for somebody, you can call it baptism response. - Exactly. - You could call it but what you're trying to do is you're trying to avoid something that you would naturally type. - Yes. - Which then calls up this huge response. - I use it for email signatures. So I use multiple email signatures and so I just, I create a little snippet for that at the end of every email from writing a cross point email. It's CP SIG and it just pops right up, everything, all that information. - That's so smart. Yeah, because otherwise people are switching accounts and all that. Okay. So text expander, good dispatch, anything else for internet? - Well, and on the text expander thing, there's a Windows option for folks. It's called phrase express. I'm not a student of it and but I do know that it's supposed to mimic the same thing. They actually use the text expander as a skeleton for it. So if your Windows user phrase express works really well or copy and paste, the point of that is in terms of productivity is don't do it more than twice. If you find yourself doing it multiple times, figure out a way to make it done quicker. But really, I mean, as far as an intermediary thing, if you go into those things and you start really exploring, I think you're doing pretty good for yourself. - Cool. Okay, anything else for mid-level? - In terms of mid-level, there's another method. I call it a trifecta of automation apps. And just kind of, I could just real briefly just kind of mention, I think keyboard maestro, launch bar and hazel, okay? Those three apps are all apps that you can get them individually or you can kind of, you know, it's a little expensive if you use all three and if you're just kind of trying to dive in, again, you don't want to spend a ton of money on something you're not going to use. But I really feel like if you automate the important, it's going to get done a lot faster. And so both all three keyboard maestro, launch bar, and hazel, what they do in different forms is they create rules for your computer. So for keyboard maestro, I use that. One of the things I use on keyboard maestro is it allows you to create profiles. If I'm going to start a podcast, I'm going to talk with you on podcast. I don't want a lot of apps running in the background. So-- - Right. - And it's already set up. As soon as I open up Skype, it shuts down everything else and gets me ready. If I walk into my home and it connects to my home Wi-Fi, it shuts down all my work stuff and only pulls up stuff for home. - Okay, hang on, that is brilliant. Because everybody struggles with that, right? You carry your job in your pocket. So say that again, like when you walk home and it recognizes your home Wi-Fi, it's like all your work stuff goes away and your play mode comes out, your family guy comes out. - And however you want to do it, however you want to do it, it's a desktop app, right? So if you pull up your computer, let's just say you come home. And a lot of times, me, when I'm ready to come home, I just close my laptop and I walk away. Well, if I come home and I pull it out, a lot of times I get really tempted and maybe there's a unfinished email that's there or maybe there's something else that's kind of been bugging me all day and it's up on the screen. As soon as I pull up my computer, it recognizes my home Wi-Fi. Now I'm a geek, right? So all my Wi-Fi's are Superman related. So, you know, I have a Wi-Fi, it's called Smallville. That's my house and so I open it up and there it is. And as soon as it detects, oh, I'm in Smallville, it turns off all of my work apps. It shuts them all down, saves them. It does everything it needs to do. And then it'll pull up, maybe, you know, maybe playing music as part of your at-home routine. It'll totally end up my tunes. - So let me ask you, how long does it take to set that up? - Where, 'cause again, this isn't preset. You're telling it to do all this. If somebody was gonna say, 'cause that sounds awesome and it sounds overwhelming, is that like a 10 minute job, a two hour job? How long does it take to program it to do that? - That's a great question. So, I mean, it could be anywhere from 10 to two hours if you don't know what you're doing. That's why it's an intermediate app and kind of on the expert level. But here's the cool thing, and I would throw text expander in with that. There are so many geeks that are jazzed about these apps and what they do is they post their snippets or their shortcuts online. And most of these apps, what you do, all you have to do is download the snippet, the program reads it and it uses it. Then you can just customize it to what you want. - So it's kind of like cheating codes. - Exactly. - You just find their shortcut and you copy it. - Exactly. - Okay. - And they make it available for everybody. There's tons of keyboard maestro shortcuts that are out there that are already made. All you gotta do is download them and use them. Launch bar, I love launch bar. It's another kind of shortcut thing. It's designed so that you don't necessarily take your hands off the keyboard and have to go use your mouse. It's got full, it's got a ton of shortcuts. My favorite one on launch bar is simply this. It's called clip merge. For sermon prep, it's incredible. All you have to do is you highlight a piece of text, you hit command C, just like normal for copying. But with clip merge, what you do is then you go highlight another piece of text and hit clip C and C again. And then you hear a little stapler sound and it has added to your clipboard. And you just continue to do that over and over and over again. And then you go into your document, you paste and you have pasted everything you've copied over to the last several clicks. - Right, and the brilliance of that is normally you're switching, okay, so I copied this off, like I do this all the time, right? When I'm doing sermon prep, I'm on Bible.com, like the Bible app. - Exactly. - I cut it, then I go back into my word or my Google doc and I paste it and then I have to go back to the Bible app and then I go back to my document and back to the Bible app. And this just like, I can stay in the Bible app, pick, choose what I want and then move once. - Exactly. - Dump it all in. - Exactly. - That is brilliant. Sold, sold. - I love it, I love it. And there's a whole lot more to it, but that's my favorite thing. In fact, I'm working on a blog post right now that it's not even a list. It says here's the one reason why I think this app is worth it. And it's for clip merge. - And that's called what, launch bar? - Launch bar. - Launch bar. And I'll send you that link too. And the last one in the trifecta is called hazel. And hazel is an amazing app. If you like rules for your email. So then again, this is another expert level thing. If you create rules in your email, meaning every time Carrie sends me an email, it'll go into the carry file, right? And it'll go there because I want to know where all of your emails are and I have them in one spot. Hazel creates rules for your computer. And so basically what happens is I'm a big fan of orange. Okay, so our church, we subscribe to orange for our children's ministry. One of the things that I like to do is as soon as an orange file, when I download the files from orange, as soon as I pull them in, it goes into one folder. I don't have to do anything else. My computer looks at it, reads it. There's a keyboard maestro shortcut that opens the zip file. Then there's a hazel rule that disperses those files into the folders that they need to go and drop box so that our leaders can just download them. - So in other words, you're not doing the manual movement. You're not in finder or Windows Explorer or anything like that. And like, okay, I got to move this file there. And then whoops, I put that in the wrong file and now I can't find it so that automatically does it. - Exactly, and I do the same thing with receipts or PDFs. You can set up any kind of rule that you want. If a document says this word or this phrase, it needs to go into this folder. If you have a, I don't know if you ever suffer from cluttered desktop disease, but my wallpaper, my desktop sometimes just gets completely cluttered. What I end up doing with it is I have a simple rule on hazel. If something has been on my desktop for over 30 days and it hasn't been touched, it puts it into an archive folder and it takes it off my desktop so I could look at it later, archive it, throw it away if I want or whatever. - So I'm the big fan of Orange II, obviously. I think any listener would know that. That's where you and I actually met at Orange Conference for the first time, which is amazing. But let's say, okay, so Orange is typical. So Orange is an organization that really helps leaders reach families. All right, I'm a big fan. But Orange is also a really common word. So it's like, hey, paint that wall Orange or I wanna have an Orange for Lunch. - Right. - How does it make sure that you're, hey, I wanna have an Orange for Lunch email, which is kind of a weird email, but doesn't end up in your Orange file to all your leaders who are trying to download the Orange curriculum. - That's a great question because it goes right back to my rule of if you do it more than twice, you know, don't do it again. After I got into the habit of downloading the Orange files, I got to see that there's a pattern to their file naming structure. And so I noticed the file naming structure. And so I'm able to kind of say, okay, if this zip file is called this or has some of these characters in it, automatically open it up. And so that's what it does. So it kind of, I take a look at it. And if they change their file structure, it might clog up my system a couple of times and then I'll fix it and tweak it. But it'll read what that file structure is, the file naming structure, open up those zip files. And then I also know that these files have certain file naming structures. You know, they have things for, you know, large groups, small group, games and that kind of thing, which are relatively the same on one end. And then they change on the other end, depending on whatever the theme is. I look at one piece of that snippet and then it just sends it into folders. And if you run Dropbox, maybe some of your leaders download from Dropbox and it sends it into files that are just really easy for them to download and take a look at. - Brilliant. So it works. - It works. - If you dig down. Okay, wow. Time has flown in. - It has. - So we've got some time now to geek out. - Okay. - And this is like graduate level. And again, everything's in the show notes. And I think this will probably end up being one of the most access show notes ever on the podcast because it's so, it's just so helpful. And I mean, a lot of, and again, you know, I started this by saying, you know, I'm fairly geeky. Well, I don't feel geeky anymore, but keep going. - Okay, so here's the thing for our last part. There's two apps that I would really recommend. One of them is a web app and one of them is a phone app. Okay? The first one is, it's called if this, then that. - Oh yeah, I have friends who use that. - I love it. They've actually shortened it down now to if. - Yeah. - I guess, you know, I guess five letters was just too much for people to type. So they dropped it down to if. And so the way if this, then that works is it creates internet rules for your activity. And so I have a simple rule that works on Instagram. Sometimes I love, I'm a graphics geek. I don't know if you know that. I love church graphics. I love seeing how people do things. And so I have an Instagram account that basically just kind of follows other churches. And I have it set so that the rule is, if I like an image on Instagram, then it says then, save it to this Dropbox folder. - Oh, brilliant. - And so basically I pull up this app every once in a while. I love to see where other churches are doing graphically. I love taking a look at things. I'm a big geek that way. If I hit like on something that you do, you post a daily Bible verse on a regular basis. Multiple times I'll go through and I'll like those verses. And I actually use a lot of your verses as my screen saver on my computer. - Oh, isn't that cool? - And it puts it automatically into a folder that my computer pulls up and makes it as my screen saver. And so if I like Kerry's morning verse, it throws it into a Dropbox folder that my computer then reads and makes it as my screen saver. - That's crazy. If you don't follow me on Instagram, that's just something I do. That's my own Bible reading. I do first thing in the morning. And I don't do it every day, but like I try to find a verse that maybe isn't the typical quoted verse that really spoke to me that day. And then I use Word swag. We'll link to that as well. And I put like a little graphic thing and I'm not a graphic designer, but like it's just a way of reminding me this is what really matters. And then hopefully, you know, it encourages and inspires other people. But I didn't know you could do that. And so does that work on the Instagram app? Or is that just like the web browser? - Well, it works on the Instagram app. So what happens is basically when you set up an account with if this, then that you link all your social media accounts and your blogs and everything. So it even, you know, you link your Instagram account and it'll do that. It'll also do a certain hashtag. So if this hashtag appears, anywhere on the internet, you know, put it in my Evernote file. And you could really tell things to go anywhere you want. You could even tell it, you know, if my blog posts a new blog post, please save it to Evernote or please send it to my Twitter file, my Twitter account. - Or pump it out on Twitter. - Yeah, exactly. - In other words, so it automates. - It automates. I mean, it's one of those, I love automation. It really ends up saving time. And it creates an opportunity for me to look back at stuff, even through, whether it's through Evernote or through Dropbox or anywhere and say, I have an archive. So for me, I have a backup archive of my blog that's just simply a, if this, then that rule. If my blog posts, a blog post, it saves an extra copy in Evernote for me just in case. - Wow. Yeah. And I have a friend who actually, his blog went down, it got infected by a virus. And like, he thought he had lost two years of contents, obviously. - Seriously. - Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. - And so the other app real quick that I would say is a new app that's out, but it's already getting a lot of traction. It's called Workflow. And I think it's iOS only right now. - But is that Workflow or Workflow E? - It's Workflow. Yeah, no E at the end. - 'Cause I've got one on my phone. I'm just looking at it right now called Workflow E. So with a Y. - Right, it's a different one. - Different app. - It's a different app. It's just called, it's called Workflow. A lot of folks refer to it as Workflow.app. Sometimes the website is Workflow.is, but on this Workflow app, you create other triggers on your phone that it will either work automatically or as you choose for it to happen. So here's one example of a workflow. Sometimes I just want a PDF of something that I could send right away. And I'm on my phone and there's not really an easy way on your phone to create a PDF through the Workflow app. It'll turn anything that I'm looking at into a PDF that I could send. - No way. - And all you do is, now the way it works is, 'cause iOS 8 is so integrated. I know all my Android friends are saying, we used to be able to do that a long time ago. - Well, I'm an Apple geek. And so I open up my phone and on any area, when you kind of just pull that little arrow button on the bottom, it'll ask you, do you wanna use a workflow if you have the app installed? And if you do, you click that and then you can make a workflow that says turn anything into a PDF and then send it. - Wow. - And that's what I do is you can go through and you could send that. There's all their kind of like, there's cheesy workflows that you can make. You could send, there's a workflow that says, show me my top 25 played songs on my phone, you know? And it'll do that. There's pretty much anything you could do. And that's another app that has gained so much traction that people are posting online now, what their favorite workflows are. And so if you're stuck on trying to create one, all you have to do on the workflow app is type gallery. And it shows you things that people have submitted that they say, hey, this is what works for me. - Right. And is that true also with, if this than that, that they have, they call them recipes, don't they? - They call them recipes. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And you can copy people's recipes. And again, it goes in a million different directions. Like anything you can think of, there either is a recipe or you can create a recipe for it. - Absolutely. And the usual thing is that, you know, if you wanna kind of dip your toes into the intermediate and advanced area of technology, you can piggyback off of what other people have already done, see what works for you, and then maybe even get creative after that and do something that, you know, that people haven't thought of yet. - Wow. Okay, so that's the geek part. Anything else for geeks? Or those were the two big ones. - That's the big ones. - Those are the big ones. - Okay. - I'm afraid if I go in deeper, we'll kind of - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - The way over. - Yeah. So here's how we'll structure the show notes. We're gonna have a beginner section, an intermediate section, then the geek out section or the advanced section or whatever we end up calling you. That's really, really cool. So just to back up, let's, 'cause this has been a lot of super helpful information. We had a whole bunch of questions we just couldn't get to today, so we'll have to have you back one day and talk about some other things. But essentially, this is about technology, but it's really about efficiency. And the goal is to try to figure out what can I do, so I'm not doing the same thing over and over again, so I can actually go meet people. I can go hang out with my neighbor and have dinner, you know, this neighbor I'm praying for. And a lot of that just, 'cause these technologies, I think what I'm trying to drive at is, they themselves are not the end. They're means to an end. And basically, if you just decide, I need to better track what I'm doing. I need a place to save everything. I need to automate some things that I'm doing on a regular basis. That is what all of this stuff is driving toward. Am I correct? - It really is because my heartbeat isn't technology, it's people. And I truly believe that just sometimes we get caught in the minutiae of the work of the ministry. And sometimes we get trapped as pastors or as leaders to say, well, if I don't do it, who will? And the deal is that more and more technology is growing to the point where the court is completely cut. We don't have to be attached to the wall anymore. We don't have to be attached to the office. There are things that we can do that are fast and efficient so that we can then do what really matters most, which is build relationships with people and spend time with those that really need it. And there is a way that you could just take that phone and just put it down and focus on somebody and not be worried about the next thing on your item list. - Right. And I think there's a lot of leaders and a lot of church leaders who are drowning in email, who are like, I've got way too many inboxes, between Facebook Messenger and any DMs on Twitter. And now even Instagram has an inbox. I mean, it's not used very often, but there's inboxes everywhere and people just feel overwhelmed by it. And it's rather, I think, appropriate or at least a good image or metaphor that this, 'cause you're the geek pastor, that when you go home, everything related to work shuts down and you can be present for your wife, you can be present for your daughter. And so the idea is not that you're gonna be doing this 18 hours a day or 20 hours a day. It's like actually you get some freedom by mastering this stuff. - Absolutely. - Wow. - And if I could give everybody just one last, a word from the geek pastor, okay? - Yeah. - And here's the thing, I really would encourage you, turn your notifications off because there's nothing about a red badge with a number on it that's gonna get work done faster or better. And it's just check your email when you're ready to reply to it, you know, there's no need for a Facebook or a Twitter, you know, badge. You know, if you throw on your text message badge, you know, that's fine. Maybe, you know, maybe you need to be up on certain things. But one of the things that I strive to do on my phone is to see as little red as possible. Because those are just things they just wanna interfere. They wanna get in the way of ministry, they wanna get in the way of my family. And they're calling to me to pull my attention away. And I really don't think that that's God honoring. I think that, you know, having something chiming in your head all the time to tell you, focus on this instead of what you're doing right now, I think that's a bad thing. And that's where we kind of get tied into there's too much of that. - That's a good word, you know, because, I mean, I still have some notifications on and sometimes I'll be sitting there in a meeting and literally, you know, my phone's always on silent or vibrate, but every 15 seconds now, there's something that comes in. There's a new email, there's a Twitter reply, there's a Facebook, whatever, and I'm kind of like, you look at that and go, ugh. And you're right, 'cause I'm not gonna spend all day on Twitter, I'm not gonna spend all day on Facebook. It gets like 15 minutes a day. - Exactly. - And I could go in at four o'clock, I can look at all the @ replies, I can look at all the interaction on Facebook. And I don't need to see that number accumulate over the course of the day. - It's so true. - Super smart. Well, Wayne, can't thank you enough. Now, people are gonna wanna follow you, for sure. Tell them about your podcast and where they can find you online. - Oh, well, first off, man, thanks so much for having me here, it's been such a blast. It's cool being on the other side. (laughing) And not having to think of what's the next question. - Well, the Geek Paster podcast and the blog is where I spend my time trying to help other people get the work of the ministry done productively. And so the podcast is really a labor of love for me. I've been in broadcasting before and I love this part and I love getting to talk to leaders that are way smarter than me to help me get to where I need to be. So you can follow the blog and the podcast over at geekpaster.com and everything else is just at geekpaster.com all over social media and everything. My personal Twitter account is Wayne Cordova. And so if you go there, like I said, I promised ahead of time, you'll see lots of family posts and you'll see lots of ministry posts as well. But it really has. It's been a pleasure, man, being here. - Hey, you have helped a lot of people, including me. So thank you so much, Wayne. - Oh, thank you. Well, isn't that just super helpful? And I know you're gonna want the show notes. So the link to the show notes for anything that Wayne and I talked about can be found at kerrynewhop.com/episode34. Wayne, Jessica, and myself have taken time to put the show notes together. So hopefully that will be super helpful to you and your team. And again, if you're listening via the overcast app, which I talked about at the beginning, it is so easy to share this episode with friends. So if you've got a team member, you're like, you need to hear this just to hit the share button and away you go. There's also a very special offer that Wayne has put together on his site. So if you go to geekpaster.com/kerry, that's geekpaster.com/c-a-r-e-y. He's got a couple of bonuses. First of all, Wayne has, out of the goodness of his own heart, put together three free video webinars that will help you with email, automation, and going paperless. So if you've ever wanted to be paperless or figure out how to automate things, he's shown you how to do that. You can get that for free at geekpaster.com/kerry. There will also be an invite to a webinar he's gonna do on Google Hangouts, which again is free. All right, so he'll help you with some more tech tips. If you want, you can register there. And during that Google Hangout, he is gonna give away a free hour of coaching to any podcast listener. So this is a Hangout exclusively to podcast listeners, and he will give a free hour of coaching away. So if you're like, I barely know what a webinar is, he can coach on that. If you're like, man, I wanna geek out even more, he'll coach you on that. So all of that is at geekpaster.com/kerry. Wayne, thanks for being so generous with listeners. And again, all those links are in the show notes. kerrynewhoff.com/episode34. So hopefully this has helped you. And then next week when we come back for episode 35, I'm gonna be talking to Clay Scroggins. And Clay's just one of those interesting guys. I've talked to a couple of young leaders, John Stickel in episode 29, Josh Gagnon in episode 17, who got interested with huge responsibility at a young age. Clay's one of those guys too. At 30, started leading a church of 6,000. Now he is the campus pastor at North Point Church where Andy Stanley is. So we're gonna talk about what it's like to work under Andy's leadership and everything. That's next week. And now at 34, he leads a church of 14,000 people. So man, we're gonna talk all about the journey of leadership. What happens when you feel unprepared for it? Just a great, great, great interview with Clay. That's next week for episode 35. Best way to never miss an episode is to subscribe. It's free, cost you absolutely nothing. Just hit the big old subscribe button on iTunes, on Stitcher, or on TuneIn Radio. And thanks again for listening. Thanks for sharing this episode. Thanks so much for your feedback, for the reviews. And we'll catch you next week and hope this helps you lead like never before. - You've been listening to the "Carry Newhoff Leadership Podcast." Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) (gentle music)