I’ve been thinking a lot about productivity this week. Probably because life for me and my family is about to change. Again. Monday I start a full-time day job, a gift from God. I will maintain working on Saturdays for now, but will be home in the evenings. A good change, but still an adjustment.
So I’ve been spending odd spare moments re-evaluating (as I am prone to do) my system for productivity. I thought I’d share a few of those thoughts here.
1. Matt Perman–author of the What’s Best Next blog–tweeted an amazing thought today (referencing a book he is writing): “One of the biggest influences for my book on productivity is actually Edwards’ book on love, because productivity is the outworking of love.”
Stop and think about that for a second: Productivity is the outworking of love. So what does that look like? I’ve pondered this a bit today. I think it could envision several things-I love my crew when I am being productive and getting things done so that I can not only serve them better as a mother, but also I can maximize the time I have to spend with them. I love my God when I am productive because I am treating respectfully the gifts and responsibilities he has entrusted me with. I love my church, my school, my community and most of all, my neighbors (including my coworkers) when I am productive because my doing my job and tasks well demonstrates an awareness and care for those God places in my path.
But I think, best of all Productivity is the Outworking of Love as explained in this quote by John Piper “Aimless, unproductive Christians contradict the creative, purposeful, powerful, merciful God we love.”
That’s a huge kick.
2. Tim Challies shared a helpful post this week at his blog Challies.com titled “How I Get Things Done”. It was a helpful reminder of the GTD productivity concepts and has helped to encourage me to revise and renew my own personal productivity workflow. He also has a related post about the applications he uses. He’s a MAC user like me, so I really appreciated his insight.
