This a great paragraph from Piper’s article The Marks of a Spiritual Leader:
A leader does not like clutter. He likes to know where and when things are for quick access and use. His favorite shape is the straight line, not the circle. He groans in meetings that do not move from premises to conclusions but rather go in irrelevant circles. When something must be done he sees a three-step plan for getting it done and lays it out. A leader sees the links between a board decision and its implementation. He sees ways to use time to the full and shapes his schedule to maximize his usefulness. He saves himself large blocks of time for his major productive activities. He uses little pieces of time lest they go to waste. (For example, what do you do while you are brushing your teeth? Could you set a magazine on the towel rack and read an article?) A leader takes time to plan his days and weeks and months and years. Even though it is God who ultimately directs the steps of the leader, he should plan his path. A leader is not a jellyfish that gets tossed around by the waves, nor is he an oyster that is immovable. The leader is the dolphin of the sea and can swim against the stream or with the stream as he plans.
HT: What’s Best Next
July 28 2010 | Blog | No Comments »
About a year ago I read an article titled, “How to Get Your Email Inbox to Zero Every Day” over at Matt Perman’s blog. The result of reading this single blog post was a massive overhaul not only in how I handled e-mail but in the total picture of my work flow. Perman’s article consistently referenced a system of productivity called GTD (Getting Things Done), which is where he got most of his productivity principles from.
As I began to research the topic of productivity and to sharpen my system I kept running across the name David Allen and the book Getting Things Done, so I asked my wife to get it for me for Christmas and read it over Christmas break. Having finished reading Getting Things Done I now understand what all of the excitement is about!
Allen’s basic point is that everyone, from businessmen to housewives, needs some kind of a trusted system that they use in order to capture ideas, turn them into tasks and keep them organized so that they don’t feel like their work life is out of control. Prior to reading Getting Things Done I would routinely look over my pile of things to do and feel a sense of anxiety. What I didn’t realize was that the anxiety wasn’t the result of the work, but of my perception of the work. It all just looked like one massive pile (which it was), rather than an organized set of tasks that could be prioritized and accomplished one by one. The result of reading Getting Things Done has been a tremendous sense of freedom and control over my work life. I now look at my inbox with a sense of excitement and anticipation, rather than dread over what’s lurking in the pile that I’d forgotten about.
Here’s the basic formula that I’ve developed using the tools from Getting Things Done:
1) Anything that I need to do or want to think about ends up in one of three inboxes. I have a physical inbox in my office, my e-mail inbox, and my evernote inbox (I also have voice mail, but I don’t really get a lot of messages that way). What these inboxes do is serve as hoppers for me to store information, or tasks until I can get around to dealing with them.
2) Each day I process my inboxes by dealing with each item and deciding what to do with it. If something is in my inbox there are only two things that it can be there for. It’s either for reference or for me to do something with. If it’s for reference I can look it over and decide whether to throw it away or to keep it for later reference. If it needs an action associated with it I will either do the action (if it takes less than 2 minutes), or put it on a list that I review every day and get to it when I can.
3) In conjunction with my calendar, each day I review my action list and my project list to see what needs to get done and I do it.
4) There are a few other steps like reminders for items that I want to get to later, weekly reviews, etc. but this is the basic system.
I know this sounds incredibly simplistic and that’s really the beauty of the whole system. Because I know that all of my work responsibilities have been captured in this system, I can approach each day with a clear mind and a sense of confidence that nothing has slipped through the cracks.
Getting Things Done won’t improve your spiritual life, help your relationship with your kids, or give you a better marriage (that’s what the Bible is for), but it is an excellent tool for clearing your mind from all of the clutter of day to day life and helping you to focus more intently on the things in life that really do matter. I highly recommend it.
March 08 2010 | Blog | 6 Comments »
This post was really convicting to me. After reading it I had a great talk with Amy and made some significant changes to my personal and work habits when it comes to allowing interuptions and learning to just turn things off. The author gives five suggestions for every family to implement, all of which I highly recommend. Here’s an excerpt:
Is our ability to follow long arguments, to process information well, and to meditate on the “big picture” suffering from a sea of triviality?…Mental development takes time and practice. What if nobody takes the time? Could it be that we are marketing habits to young adults that are not helpful?
You can find the rest of the article here.
August 11 2008 | Blog | No Comments »
Time management seems to be one of the most challenging things that I deal with and I’m sure that it’s the same for many of you. The following quote touches on our use of time and is taken from Thomas Watson’s The Godly Man’sPicture Drawn with a Scripture Pencil.
“How you spend your time, is a matter of great importance. Many people fool away their time–some in idle visits, others in recreations and pleasures which secretly bewitch the heart, and take it away from holy things. What are our golden hours for–but to attend to our souls? Time misspent is not time lived–but time lost!”
“The serious thoughts of our short stay here in this world,would be a great means of promoting godliness. Whoever considers how flitting and winged his life is–will hasten his repentance.”
September 01 2007 | Blog | No Comments »
