From my reading . . . 

Every man should aim to do one thing well. If he dissipates his attention on several objects, he may have excellent talents entrusted to him, but they will be intrusted to no good end.

Concentrated on his proper object, they might have vast energy; but dissipated on several, they will have none. Let other objects be pursued indeed; but only so far as they may subserve the reader’s purpose.

By neglecting this rule I have seen frivolity and futility written on minds of great power; and by regarding it, I have seen very limited minds acting first rank of their profession. I have seen a large capital and a great stock dissipated; and I have seen a small capital and improved to great riches.

I’ve noticed more of books I read for classes in school seems to remain accessible in my memory than books I read on my own initiative.

There’s multiple reasons for this, I’m sure, but the link between reading and writing (papers and book reports!) seems to strengthen retention of what I read.

I’ve tried different methods of active reading.  Some advise keeping an ongoing index of notes in the front or back of a book as you read.  I’ve tried this and it doesn’t work well for me.  My default mode is underlying and noting key themes being developed in the book on the top of pages as I read.

This is useful, but I’m looking for something more than this.  It becomes even more complicated with the gradual shift to books in electronic form.  While some highlighting and annotations are possible with the e-Books I read, it is at the very least awkward.

This past week, will search for a better method of “reading and learning from what I read” I ran across a posting that caught my attention (link).   The author, Tony Reinke, who last year produced a helpful 3-part series of reading tips, shared his method of “indexing” books he read (including e-books) or listened to (audio books).   I’ve adopted his suggestions and am going to “give it a try.”

While these contain wise and useful advice, another dimension exists.  A person who leads God’s people needs to factor in the spiritual dimension of daily planning.

I was challenged by the way theologian Wayne Grudem integrated these two dimensions when asked,

What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your effective use of time?

He answered,

I find the most helpful thing I do regarding use of time is to spend time in prayer each morning bringing my plans and my “to do” list before the Lord and seeking his direction.

As far as human advice and counsel, I have found the system described in Getting Things Done by David Allen to be very helpful… I should add that I find effective use of time to be a continual challenge and I keep making small modifications here and there…

Several verses of Scripture also have influenced me in this regard. Paul said, “It is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy (or “faithful,” Greek pistos)” (1 Corinthians 4:2) and that has made me seek to be faithful to God in the way I use all of my time.

Here’s the original interview link.

5. Keep a SHORT to-do list for each day – four items, max
I used to weight down my to-do list with way too many things to do. At the end of the day, though, I would not only feel as though I rushed through stuff, I’d feel like I hadn’t really accomplished too much because there was always stuff left on my list.

The solution is pretty simple. Your to-do list should have at most four items on it. Naturally, your day routine will have several other tasks that you do as part of a routine (checking and responding to emails, maintenance tasks, regular meetings, and so on) – don’t include these on your to-do list. Instead, those routine items should be used to fill in the gaps between the big items on your to-do list. Finish off each day with the routine of ensuring your to-do list for tomorrow is ready, but you can/should be assembling it throughout the day.

Construct those items carefully so that they can be done with about fifty minutes of truly focused work. This way, you can complete a task on your to-do list with a single block of focused time (as in tip #1, above). If you need to fit in more work than that on your to-do list, add it to the one for the day after tomorrow, or the day after that.

How I Do It: I just add items throughout the day to my lists, then at the end of the day, I fill up tomorrow’s list to four items with tasks that always need done – drafting posts, researching a particular angle, and so on. Each day, I live by this list. I close out distractions and focus on one item on the list until it’s done. Then, I do all of my routine tasks in the gaps between these big jobs. If things go well, I might steal an item from the next day’s to-do list if I have time for a fifth thing.

6. Check email only twice a day
Email is almost always a major time sink. It’s rarely a simple matter of just reading messages. Many messages demand responses, and some messages demand follow-up tasks. Leaving that email window open throughout the day ensures only one thing – your concentration will be interrupted constantly by messages that come in that need responses.  My solution is to simply close the program. Open it only two times a day or so and do an email session, where you deal with everything in your inbox. Then, close the program completely (including notifications) and move onto something else. If it’s truly urgent, someone will come directly to you, so don’t worry about missing out on something vital.

How I Do It: I check my email twice a day. I often do one email session while eating lunch, then a second session just before finishing up tomorrow’s to-do list and quitting for the day (on occasion, I’ll do a third one in the morning before the kids wake up, but this one is often interrupted). My goal with each session is to clear out my inbox – I deal with every message immediately unless it involves a task that’s going to take more than five minutes or so.

7. File things once a day
This is actually a pretty recent addition to my routine. I had to add it simply because I had a giant pile of things that didn’t need immediate action, but needed to hang around for future reference: statements, prospectuses, post ideas, receipts, magazine articles, and so on. My pile of such items eventually came to dominate my desk and it was often impossible to find anything in there.

To take care of this, I started a very simple filing system in a box that I keep next to my desk. This keeps my desk clear most of the time (giving me space to work on things at hand), plus it enables me to find stuff quickly when I want to find it. The best part? Once the system is in place, it doesn’t take much effort to maintain it – maybe a minute a day. Considering I’d often burn ten minutes digging through the pile finding things, this is a huge time saver for me.

8. Start your day with your major creative or thought-intensive task
When I start my day, I have a choice of the four items on my to-do list. Which one will I tackle first? I’ve usually had breakfast and a shower and prepared the kids for their day, so I’m wide awake and my brain is running. I’ve found, time and time again, that starting your day with your most thought-intensive task sets the tone for the whole day. It forces you into prime thinking early on and you can ride that wave throughout most of the day. If I do a major thought-intensive task after several hours of work, my brain turns to mush for the rest of the day. Finishing the day with my easiest task leaves me pretty fresh for my evening activities with my family.

How I Do It: Whenever I look at the day’s to-do list, I always choose the item that seems to be the most thought intensive. That means I do my heaviest thinking earlier in the day, usually ending with an afternoon task or two that doesn’t require nearly as much active thought. I’ll do creative work in the mornings and things like interviews in the afternoon, for example.

9. Take lots of micro breaks (or at least switch to very different tasks regularly)
One of the biggest enemies in a workday is lethargy. It’s easy to find yourself in a low-energy period, sitting there having trouble keeping your eyes open or concentrating on anything. Once you’re there, it’s often very hard to pull yourself out of it – you’re running on low energy for the rest of the day, even if you do rebound a bit.  The best way to combat it is to never let your energy level get that low. That means not sitting at your desk or your work area for long periods. Get up and move on a regular basis. Instead of eating a big, heavy lunch, eat smaller snacks throughout the day. Stretch. Drink water. Do this as often as you can – bookend task sessions with a micro break where you do these things.

How I Do It: Whenever I finish an isolated block, I take a five minute break. I get up from my desk, walk downstairs, get a drink of water, use the bathroom, stretch a bit, and maybe grab a very small snack (like a granola bar or a piece of fruit).  Doing this has basically eliminated the mid-afternoon energy lull I used to have – around two, I would basically hit a wall and not be productive for the rest of the day. Now, I can keep going until … well, read the next tip.

10. Don’t overwork
Sure, once in a while, you have to put in some extra hours in order to really do your job well. It’s also important to note that different people have different energy levels for their day.  Given that, though, the worst mistake you can make is to overwork. If you’re nearing the end of the day and you just can’t seem to get anything done, don’t push it. Time and time again, I’ve found that pushing myself to get just a little bit more done at the end of the day has long term negative ramifications. I have a harder time getting going the next morning, for example, and if I do it consistently, my overall productivity slows to a crawl.

How I Do It: If I feel myself starting to slip at the end of a day, I stop. I finish up my day and move on to something else. Burning myself out with regards to my work is incredibly dangerous and something I take great pains to avoid. Stopping early might slightly reduce my productivity for that given day, but it doesn’t drag down my long-term productivity at all – if anything, it does the opposite, because I’m not burnt out the next day.

Here’s the Original Link

This article is fairly long, so I’ll break it up into two postings – this Friday and next Friday.

Ten things that work for me

Over the last few years, I’ve read a ton of time management books and tried out literally hundreds of systems and standalone ideas for maximizing the effectiveness of my time, particularly in terms of my work… Here’s the problem with productivity tips… Most of them don’t work.

I’ve tried many, many productivity ideas, yet I keep coming back to the same handful in the end. These tips work for me… I think most of them will work well for you – at the very least, they’re worth trying.

1. Avoid multitasking like the plague
Every time I attempt to multitask, I wind up doing each task with a lower level of quality than I would have if I had focused on just that task. My concentration isn’t fully sustained on any of the tasks I juggle, so I wind up using only a slice of my brain for each task. That simply results in lower quality work… In the end, I’m left with tasks done in a mediocre fashion and, quite often, no time saved at all. That, to me, is a lose-lose.

Here’s the way to solve it: focus on only one task at a time. Let the rest slide. Work on that one task in bursts – at most an hour in length. Then stop and catch up on any incoming messages you need to deal with, take a break, and so on.

How I Do It: When I begin a big task, I shut off everything. I turn off my cell phone and the ringer on our home phone. I close my email program. I shut my office door. I choose music (or similar audio) that’s conducive to concentration. I set the clock to an hour or so. Then I bear down. I do the research. I write the article. I let everything else go. After about five minutes, I usually get into some sort of flow where I fail to even notice what time it is until my clock alerts me that the time is up. When I stop and step back, I usually realize that I’ve completed what seems like a lot of work, far more than I would have achieved with interruptions.

2. Keep a notebook with you and write down your thoughts
We all have lots of good ideas float through our heads throughout the day: things we need to do, ideas for future directions, facts we need to look up. In an average day, I usually have twenty or twenty five of these little things bubble up from my sub consciousness.  Many people try to just trap these in their conscious mind until they can do them, but doing that makes it harder to concentrate and really bear down on an important task. Instead of doing this, keep a pocket notebook or a PDA with you at all times to jot down any small things that pop into your head. Don’t worry about whether it’s a good idea or not – just get it down on paper and deal with it later.

3. Keep an “inbox” and process it once or twice a day
So, what do you do with all of those jotted down notes – and with all of the other things that come your way in a given day, like mail, miscellaneous tasks people send to you by email, and so on? It’s pretty simple – once or twice a day, process all of it. Take some sort of action on all of those stored-up items – toss them in the trash, file them away, take care of the task, pencil it in on your calendar, or so on.  The goal needs to be eliminating everything in your inbox. You should strive to get to “empty” once a day, with everything in there dealt with in some capacity. If you let it build up, it will grow out of control.

How I Do It: I usually keep two separate “inboxes” – one on the computer and one on the left side of my desk. I pick through each of these at least once a day, usually at the end of the day. Usually I spend time adding to my idea file, taking care of little tasks, adding things to tomorrow’s to-do list, updating my calendar, updating my grocery list, and so on. The biggest challenge I had to work through with this was not simply making another pile out of things that needed filing and things that need further reading (like notes for a future post). I’ve recently solved that problem (see #7).

4. Keep a project list – and focus on it at least an hour a day
We all have a lot of projects that we’d like to work on – projects that aren’t really essential to what we’re doing, but would go a long way towards making life easier once they’re complete. Things like reorganizing the pantry, cleaning out the garage, sorting through all of our kids’ clothes and putting up everything that isn’t at least 3T in size, doing a small marketing project, writing something intriguing but complex, and so on – they vary widely from person to person… Of course, a project list is useless if you don’t use it. Set aside one hour each day where your focus is on one of the projects on your list. Pick one out and make some progress.

How I Do It: I keep a “to-do” list that is a maximum of thirty items long for such projects. I order it by the day that I add a task to the list, so that the oldest one is always at the top of the list. If the list has thirty projects on it and I want to add another one, I simply delete the one on top of the list. When I want to work on something, I start at the top of the list and go down the list until I find one that’s compelling for me to work on at the moment.  This works amazingly well for me. If a task reaches the top of the list and I haven’t taken significant action on it, it’s because on some level I’ve realized that I’m not really that interested in the project. It also keeps my “project list” from getting impossibly big, making it feel like a realistic thing to manage.

Here’s the Original Link

I mentioned the importance of having a “both-and” mentality.  Interruptions are not necessarily bad, they just need to be managed wisely.  The following comments, which I ran across last week, highlight the flip side of the picture,

It’s not possible to schedule all of our lives (nor should we try). And so there is no misunderstanding: I’m not dependent upon my schedule. My dependence rests upon God himself.
The unexpected will arise each day, needs will emerge that we did not anticipate, and situations that we could not foresee will require our attention.
We should not be surprised by apparent interruptions to our schedule. These are part of God’s purpose and plan for our lives. As C.S. Lewis so wisely noted:

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own,” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it’s hard to remember it all the time (The Quotable Lewis (Wheaton, IL.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1989), 335.)

First, it takes 21 days to form a new habit. I like to use 30 day blocks, however, to be sure the habit gets locked in.

Start Small: Pick just one daily, do-able thing that you’ll take on for 30 days. For example, you commit to putting your clothes in the hamper before bed for the next 30 days. Selecting one thing will put all of your focus there, rather than trying to tackle several habits at once.

Be Clear: Be sure that you know clearly whether you’ve accomplished the task or not. For example, is your goal to file paper in your home office for 10 minutes each day or is it to file 1/2 an inch of paper each day? Near dinner time each day, mine will be to check off food items that need to be purchased this week.

Track Progress: Use a calendar… or create a spreadsheet with 30 boxes to track your progress. A check mark or gold star means you did the task. Leaving the box blank of course means you didn’t do it.

Keep It Visible: Have your document pop up on your screensaver, set reminders in your electronic calendar or place in another visible place, such as on the refrigerator. As you’re forming a new habit, you’ll need prompts.

Be Consistent: When possible, do the task at the same time every day. This will make the action a routine and, in time, you’ll be pulled to complete it automatically. For instance, pop your jacket into the closet right away when you arrive home each day.

Begin: The hardest part is to begin. Pick a start day. Today is a good idea so that you don’t build up resistance to change.

The original link is here.

The Internet can be both a bane and a blessing for Christian leaders.  Other than the obvious danger and temptation on-line pornography raises, those who lead God’s people can end up wasting a lot of time “surfing the Internet.”  In the interest of being good stewards of our time surely we would do well to periodically examine how we are using the Web.

The following article Know when you should unplug from the Internet [Distractions],
written by a secular website editor, gives some useful advice using the Internet wisely.  He suggests careful discipline and dividing our our work into “Contexts.”  Some of our work is better done with the computer “off line” and some “online.”  It’s worth reading!

An influential Christian leader was recently asked, “What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your effective use of time?”  He answered,

A great tree will fall with many small chops.
Pray for daily grace to keep chopping.

I’m learning the wisdom of this advice in the small things of my life.

For years I’ve I’ve had on my “Things to Do” – Someday/Maybe list the entry “Catalog my library”. I’m managed to group my library into categories tailored to my ministry focus but haven’t succeeded in actually getting around to entering the books into a database and preparing the corresponding book spine labels.  It always seemed like too big a project.

Now I’ve started the project using “small chops.”  Using an internet service called the LibraryThing I’m entering 5 or 6 books a day.  The site is working well for me – I just enter the ISBN number and up pops the book, with all the bibliographic date and even a photo of the book.  Amazing!

I’ve put this in my list of daily routines and I’m finding it takes less than 10 minutes a day.  It’s working!  If I keep it up eventually I’ll have the books entered and catalogued and the web site will give me an exportable listing of my library that I can import into Excel, EndNotes and Zotero.

Here’s a simple checklist that can help a person use their time well.  Paste it up near your desk or in your planner and use on a daily basis!

1. Rise early
2. Start with the most important tasks
3. Do not multi-task (unless the nature of the task is to multi-task)
4. Prevent interruptions (but make time for people)
5. Organize your time into the largest continuous blocks possible
6. Actually do what you need to do

From Matt Perman’s blog, What’s Best Next