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Ploductivity Matters

Ploductivity Matters

An Overview of Biblical and Practical Approaches to Being Productive Every Day

Every Day Matters (Brandon D. Crowe)

Part I: Perspectives

  1. Why You Need This Book (We can all make each day matter more than before.)
  2. Guiding Texts: Wisdom Literature (The Benefits and Limitations of Diligent Work)
  3. Guiding Texts: Focus and Diligence in the Life and Teaching of the Apostle Paul

Part II: Principles

  1. Priorities (Not everything in life is worth doing. Choose wisely, with eternity in mind.)
  2. Goals and Planning (Write long and short-term goals, and make plans to fulfill them.)
  3. Routines (Create regular routines that help reach goals and focus on the priorities.)
  4. Family (Prioritize the family in everything, by being both disciplined and flexible.)
  5. Rest, Refresh, Repent, Resolve (Don’t neglect sleep/vacation. Repent. Don’t give up.)
  6. Sustaining Energy (Do what it takes to stay consistent and work at a manageable pace.)

Part III: Practices

  1. Engaging Spiritual Disciplines (Prioritize prayer, Bible study, worship and Sabbath rest.)
  2. Getting Organized (You can’t “remember” everything. Make use of available resources.)
  3. Avoiding Pitfalls (Technology. Multitasking. Social Media. Entertainment. Stress.)

Conclusion: Now You Know (If every day matters, then today must be the day to get started.)

Appendix: How to Handle Email (Self-control. Show respect. Keep your inbox organized.)

Also, check out these helpful reviews and a fun interview with the author.

Seven Lessons for Productivity (John Piper)

1. Know why you are here.

2. Embrace your role as a sub-creator.

3. Discover the difference between sloth and rest.

4. Make peace with imperfection.

5. Act promptly.

6. Chop a little each day.

7. Get excited for what’s ahead.

Ploductivity (Douglas Wilson)

Foreword: Rebekah Merkle shares her father’s “secret”: 

“Patience — with a bomb shot of ambition, or possibly ambition that is ruled and tempered by patience — is the surprisingly powerful combination that has made his work so…fruitful.” 

Part I: A Theology of Productivity

Introduction to Technofulness: Technology is a form of wealth + deliberate faithfulness

  1. Work (Work is more difficult because of sin, but remains a gift from God. Time. We were created for work in an astoundingly fruitful world. Good works also include good work.)

  2. Wealth (Wealth is neutral. We are not. Don’t blame wealth. Do something fruitful with it.)

  3. Tools (Tools are unavoidable and help to greatly extend our radius of fruitfulness.)

  4. Media (Recognizing the inescapability of media helps us understand that when a man buys a tool belt and fills it up, he is doing something that in principle pleases God.) 

  5. Missions and Media (Media are all the means through which Christians communicate. We cannot love others without media because love…doesn’t travel in a vacuum.)

  6. Markets (“Free Market Economics” = Respecting the free choices of others and using our freedom to investigate (and work in) the fruitful world God gave us.)

  7. Progress (Learning to harness and command the array of “servants” at our disposal.)

  8. Glad Suspicion (God gives us the wealth that we are tempted to put in place of Him.)

Part II: Learning Ploductivity

Introduction to Ploductivity: Genuinely productive work is only done coram Deo

  1. The Finitude of Work (In the cosmic scheme of things, the work God has given us is tiny. But this reality is a feature, not a bug. Those who are faithful in the little things…)

  2. Ambition is a Good Thing (There is nothing wrong with wanting your work to be significant, but you must place all your ambitions on His altar.)

  3. The Master Key (Develop genuine expertise. Craft competence is a virtue to cultivate.)

  4. The Power of Plodding (Rhythm. Pace. Predictable. Routine. Chip away. “Bite-sized”.)

  5. Work at a Pace You Can Maintain (Find a pace that works and plod. But don’t shuffle.)

  6. Progress and Depravity (Wealth is a gift from God, and pride comes from the devil. Progress, which is a type of wealth, is a good thing, but always tends to distract us.)

  7. Eschatology (In the collision between the sovereignty of Jesus and the influence of sin (incl. technological sin) in history, sin is the certain loser. Jesus is the Lord of history.)

  8. New Media (Christians should take our life-transforming message where the people are. And today people gather online. We proclaim a Gospel that encompasses all things.)

Afterword: The central labor you should want God to bless is your labor as a father. If that is blessed, your own productivity is multiplied.  “…graveyards are full of indispensable men.”

Check out these reviews (including my own), and a short interview with Doug Wilson.

 More Thoughts from Doug Wilson on Time Management:

  1. The point is fruitfulness, not efficiency. Be fruitful like a tree, not efficient like a machine.

  2. Build a fence around your life, and keep it tended. Most of life’s urgencies aren’t.

  3. Perfectionism paralyzes. “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” (Chesterton)

  4. Fill in the corners. And do not despise how much can be packed into small corners.

  5. Plod. Keep at it. Slow and steady wins the race. Work adds up, provided you do it.

  6. Take in more than you give out. If you give out more than you take in, you will..give out. 

  7. Use and reuse. Learn and relearn. Develop what you know. Cultivate what you have. 

  8. Strive for deep conviction more than superficial originality, and deep originality will come. 

 How I Don’t Get Everything Done: Doug Wilson’s Daily Routine (Condensed)

“Sometimes people ask how I get it all done, and the best answer is that I don’t. 

If you imitate any of this, the guarantee is that you too will start not getting it all done also.”

Inside Head

Overview:

Monday to Wednesday-  I go to the office around 8:30. 

Thursday morning-  the Christ Church session meets from 6 am to 7:30. 

Friday morning-  I have a men’s prayer meeting at 6:30 am followed by a breakfast together.

Saturday-  My day off is actually a mash-up of Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

Sunday morning-  I have time set aside for prayer and devotional reading prior to the services. 

Morning Routines: (Monday through Wednesday, and sometimes on Saturday)

  • I get up usually around 6, shower, and go to my study. There I have my prayer time and Bible reading…and follow it up by reading briefly through a small stack of Kindle books.

  • Then I take coffee back to Nancy, and we have our reading time together. Then we pray for the day, for the grandkids, for particular needs, etc. 

  • Back in my study, I try to write something [helpful]. This is my blogging window, then off to work around 8:30 as mentioned aforetime.

Meetings and Appointments:

  • Over a Monday through Friday week, I range between 5 and 13 appointment slots taken on my calendar. These are mostly counseling or pastoral visits…committee meetings.

  • I am usually teaching at least one course for NSA, which means there is a seminar early in the week, and a recitation later in the week where I meet with the students.

  • Wednesday is sermon outline day, and is largely kept free of appointments. The outline is prepared then, so that there is time to put it into the bulletin by Thursday.

  • My father will be 89 this fall. He has a fruitful daily ministry counseling people who come by to meet with him. But he does need help to get going in the morning, a responsibility I share with my brothers. I take Thu and Fri mornings, after my early morning meetings.

Most Evenings: 

  • When I get home, Nancy and I usually visit for a while, catching up on the day. After that, I toddle off to watch the news. We have dinner around 6. During the school year, we have some boarders downstairs, and they join us.

  • Our kids and grandkids all live here in Moscow, and so we frequently have someone dropping by. That happens at least a couple times a week, usually more.

  • The evening is when I do my regular reading. I have at least four books that I try to read from daily. I have the “book I am currently reading,” a book of poetry from which I read a poem or two, a work of fiction, and a “bucket book,” a book I really should have read by this stage in my life. Except for the poetry, I read ten pages at a go.

  • After that, I take a short time to work on some “chip away” projects, a few books I am writing at a pace of 100 words a day. This doesn’t take very long — I open the file and close it when it is 100 words longer than it was.

  • Once in a blue moon, when we want to live on the edge, Nancy and I will rent a movie.

  • Then off to bed. (Doug doesn’t say, but I am assuming sometime between 10-11pm.)

Sabbath Dinner:

[My wife] is amazing. Every week we launch the Lord’s Day at 6 pm Saturday night. We have the two of us, three kids, their spouses, and seventeen grandkids. We bring my dad over, which makes us a cool 26. In the school year we have four boarders who usually join us, and we have a standing invitation to our well-beloved shirt-tail relatives, which can add another 7. Behind it all is the fact that Nancy cooks fabulous meals for 30, 40, or more on a weekly basis. I do my little widow’s mite by setting up tables and chairs, but Nancy is the one who produces hot delicious food for the masses. Unless we are BBQing, in which case I produce hot food for the masses.

Don’t Forget Time in the Truck:

Ours is not that big a town, and I can get from home to work in about three or four minutes. A long haul, from one end of town to the other, might take ten minutes. But this is the time I redeem listening to books on Audible. I am currently listening to Letters to Malcolm by Lewis.