Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

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3 Helpful Books on Productivity: Essentialism, Deep Work, and Reset

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I recently read three helpful books on productivity. I still think the best overall book on productivity is Tim Challies’s Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity. But these three books served me by reinforcing and supplementing Do More Better.

The first two are secular (with lots of common grace). The third is evangelical.

1. Greg McKeown. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. New York: Crown Business, 2014.

  • Figure out what your core responsibilities and most important goals are.
  • Block out time for that.
  • Say No to other things—even good things—that you don’t have bandwidth for.
  • Don’t feel guilty about saying No.
  • Don’t overcommit. Setting strategic boundaries frees you to do what is most important. Less is more.

[Read more…] about 3 Helpful Books on Productivity: Essentialism, Deep Work, and Reset

Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity

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do-more-betterTim Challies just wrote a new little book on productivity called Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity (Minneapolis: Cruciform, 2015).

I process a lot of books, and when I started reading Tim’s latest book on Monday night last week, I thought that I would survey it for about ten minutes and then move on to the next book. I had read Tim’s blog series on productivity, so I thought this would merely compile his blog posts. But the book drew me in, and I ended up reading the whole thing straight through. [Read more…] about Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity

How I Set Up My Desks: One for Sitting, One for Walking

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Updated on January 27, 2016

I spend most of my waking hours working on my computer. I do a lot of reading, research, writing, editing, emailing, and planning. And I do most of that at a desk.

I’ve customized my desk setup for what I do. Of course, this isn’t how everyone else should set up their desks, but my setup may give you some ideas for how to customize your desk for what you do.

My Desk for Sitting

Here’s my desk setup:

desk1

Perman_deskI had not given much thought to organizing my desk until Matt Perman published a series of blog posts on it in 2009. Matt recently revised and expanded his series into a handy little book: How to Set Up Your Desk: A Guide to Fixing a (Surprisingly) Overlooked Productivity Problem. Here’s my endorsement:

Matt Perman has served me so well in applying a Steve Jobs-like approach to my workflow: simple, intuitive, elegant, and efficient. I’ve followed most of his advice about setting up my desk (as well as processing my email), and it works beautifully.

Here are five components to my setup: [Read more…] about How I Set Up My Desks: One for Sitting, One for Walking

What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done

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perman

Matt Perman has been working on this book for a long time, and it’s scheduled to release on March 4:

Matt Perman. What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014. 351 pp. 45-page PDF sample.

I’ve read a bit on productivity (not nearly as much as Matt), and this book is overall the most helpful one I’m aware of because it combines the best of the productivity literature (like David Allen’s Getting Things Done) with sound theology.

That’s why John Piper writes this in the foreword: [Read more…] about What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done

Administration : Faculty :: Shaft : Tip of the Spear

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abellIn a recent chapel message at Bethlehem College & Seminary, Jason Abell explains why administration is important.

Jason is BCS’s Vice President for Administration. I am so encouraged by this message and by the interaction I’ve had with Jason and others at BCS. (I’m eager to join the team in several months.)

I’ve witnessed some situations where the relationship between a school’s faculty and administration is unhealthy. Not good.

Jason closes with a provocative analogy that I hadn’t heard someone (let alone an administrator) apply to administration and faculty before:

administration : faculty :: shaft : tip of the spear

That is, [Read more…] about Administration : Faculty :: Shaft : Tip of the Spear

Keller and Carson: Greco-Roman Slavery ≠ Race-Based Slavery

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Many modern readers assume that slavery in the New Testament is equivalent to the race-based slavery of the African slave trade. While not defending the Greco-Roman institution of slavery, Tim Keller and Don Carson explain why it’s important not to equate it with the race-based slavery that we may be more familiar with.

Tim Keller

KellerTimothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (New York: Dutton, 2012), 213–14, 280–83.

Paul is speaking to servants and masters [in Ephesians 6:5–9], and this raises many questions in the minds of modern readers about the Bible’s depiction of the evil of slavery. While much can be said about this subject,* it is important to remember that slavery in the Greco-Roman world was not the same as the New World institution that developed in the wake of the African slave trade. Slavery in Paul’s time was not race-based and was seldom lifelong. It was more like what we would call indentured servitude. But for our purposes, think of this passage as a rhetorical amplifier and consider this: If slave owners are told they must not manage workers in pride and through fear, how much more should this be true of employers today? And if slaves are told it is possible to find satisfaction and meaning in their work, how much more should this be true of workers today? [Read more…] about Keller and Carson: Greco-Roman Slavery ≠ Race-Based Slavery