A Snapshot in to How Books take Shape
I mentioned briefly the other day that I’m starting work on a book. I’ll give more details on what the book is about and so forth shortly.
I thought it might be fun not only to talk about the book itself (float ideas, post some early drafts parts of chapters, and so forth), but also talk a bit about my process as well. After all, it seems very fitting, when writing a book on productivity, to peel back the curtains a bit on the productivity process involved in creating that very book.
So, even though it is a bit out of order to talk about the process before what the book is actually a bit, here’s the first snapshot for you.
Your Weaknesses Are Not What You are Bad At
Listen carefully: Your weaknesses are not what you are bad at, and your strengths are not what you are good at.
Your weaknesses are the things that make you feel weak, and your strengths are the things that make you feel strong.
This means there is incredible hope for growth. For when we say “your greatest opportunity for growth is in your area of your strengths, not your weaknesses,” we do not mean: “if you are bad at something, you don’t have much hope of ever getting better at it.”
There might be something that you are initially bad at but which you could become excellent at. For if it is something that makes you feel strong, then it’s not a weakness and you won’t be stuck. You just need to work on it — and work hard — and you will experience tremendous growth.
Having a right definition of strengths and weaknesses keeps us from a fatalistic mindset. It says: “It doesn’t matter what you are bad at. If there is something you want to accomplish, identify what makes you feel strong and seek to accomplish it along that path. If you currently aren’t good at something but doing it makes you feel strong, great news: you will be able to experience tremendous growth in that area if you work hard at it. And if there are legitimate areas of weakness (things that weaken you) that weigh you down, you can navigate around them by identifying your strengths and leveraging them to pass by your weaknesses.”
Zach Nielsen Trio: “Songs in a Minor Key”
My friend Zach Nielsen has just released his first jazz album. Zach blogs at Take Your Vitamin Z and is very gifted musically. The album is called “Songs in a Minor Key” and is available in iTunes or AmazonMP3. It’s five EP songs for less than 5 bucks. He discusses the album a bit on his blog.
Why Seth Godin is Not Writing Any More Books
Here.
In contrast, I’m working on my first book now.
A Surprise at the Final Judgment
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4:1-4:
This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. 4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.
In The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians, DA Carson points out that there is a nice surprise in this text which is contrary to everything we might expect:
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this paragraph of 1 Corinthians is how it ends. With the final day of judgment in view, Paul might have been expected to say, “At that time each will receive his rebuke from God.” But instead, he says, “At that time each will receive his praise from God” (4:5c).
How wonderful! The King of the universe, the Sovereign who has endured our endless rebellion and sought us out at the cost of his Son’s death, climaxes our redemption by praising us! He is a wise Father who knows how to encourage even the feeblest efforts of his children. What this way of concluding the paragraph shows is that in this case, God judges less sternly than the self-appointed judges in the church.
In this world, we can get so accustomed to hearing criticism. It’s built in to the fabric of things. In school, parent-teacher conferences are often centered around what the student is doing well, and then “areas for improvement.” Employee reviews often focus on what someone is doing well, and then “opportunities for growth” [= weaknesses]. And the truth is, of course, that we all have multiple shortcomings that can be rightly pointed out.
And so we would most of all expect the Last Judgment to end in the same way. But it won’t. Instead, for those who follow Christ, the Last Judgment will end with commendation — with praise — from God himself to us. He will not say “Here are the few things you did right, but look, you really screwed up here, here, and here.” Instead, “each will receive his praise from God.” I’m sure that the things we should have done differently will indeed be clear, in a non-condemnatory sort of way. But God’s focus will be on what is right, and that’s the note on which the Judgment will end (for believers). And we see this not only here in 1 Corinthians 4:4, but also in the Parable of the Talents: “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21).
For believers, the dominant note of the Final Judgment is not rebuke, but praise.
The Secret to Great Macro Management
Don’t Internalize Failure
From the book It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It [note: I'm not necessarily recommending the book in this case -- haven't looked through it enough --, but this was a helpful quote I took a picture of when I was thumbing through it in a bookstore]:
Don’t internalize failure. Remember that failure is an event, not a person. When you do fail, allow yourself to feel the disappointment. That’s reality, and an important part of it. But don’t internalize disapproval. Just because you failed at something doesn’t mean your a failure. Shake it off. And try something again.
You Will Suffer from Your Work, and It Is Not Sin
I feel like I could write a trillion words on the subject, and I hope to write on this in more detail in the coming months (we’ll see). Ajith Fernando captures the essence of my thoughts very well in his article To Serve is To Suffer. He’s hitting a note that you rarely see these days, and I think he’s right on:
I have a large group of people to whom I write asking for prayer when I have a need. Sometimes my need is overcoming tiredness. When I write about this, many write back saying they are praying that God would strengthen me and guide me in my scheduling. However, there are differences in the way friends from the East and some from the West respond.
I get the strong feeling that many in the West think struggling with tiredness from overwork is evidence of disobedience to God. My contention is that it is wrong if one gets sick from overwork through drivenness and insecurity. But we may have to endure tiredness when we, like Paul, are servants of people [emphasis added].
The New Testament is clear that those who work for Christ will suffer because of their work [emphasis added]. Tiredness, stress, and strain may be the cross God calls us to. Paul often spoke about the physical hardships his ministry brought him, including emotional strain (Gal 4:19; 2 Cor 11:28), anger (2 Cor 11:29), sleepless nights and hunger (2 Cor 6:5), affliction and perplexity (2 Cor 4:8), and toiling — working to the point of weariness (Col 1:29). In statements radically countercultural in today’s “body conscious” society, he said, “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4:16); and, “For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you” (2 Cor 4:11-12). I fear that many Christians approach these texts only with an academic interest, not seriously asking how the verses should apply in their lives.
The West, having struggled with the tyrannical rule of time, has a lot to teach the East about the need for rest. The East has something to teach the West about embracing physical problems that come from commitment to people. If you think it is wrong to suffer physically because of ministry, then you suffer more from the problem than those who believe that suffering is an inevitable step on the path to fruitfulness and fulfillment. Since the cross is a basic aspect of discipleship, the church must train Christian leaders to expect hardship. When this perspective enters our minds, pain will not touch our joy and contentment in Christ. In 18 different New Testament passages, suffering and joy appear together. In fact, suffering is often the cause for joy (Rom 5:3-5; Col 1:24; James 1:2-3).
In short, suffering is not just persecution. As Paul’s own example shows, it is also the pain, tiredness (2 Cor 6:5 — even “sleepless nights,” in which I would also include all-nighters), seasons of extensive work (2 Thessalonians 3:8; 1 Thessalonians 2:9), confusion (2 Cor 4:8), emotional pressure (2 Cor 11:28; Gal 4:19), and “non-mind-like-water” mental “weights” that come our way as we are simply being faithful. These things are not automatically signs that we are working too hard. They are often part of the path, and they are supposed to be.
TOMS Shoes
TOMS Shoes has a really good concept:
One for One
TOMS Shoes was founded on a simple premise: With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One. Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what we’re all about. The TOMS One for One mission transforms our customers into benefactors, which allows us to grow a truly sustainable business rather than depending on fundraising for support.Why Shoes?
Many children in developing countries grow up barefoot. Whether at play, doing chores or going to school, these children are at risk:•A leading cause of disease in developing countries is soil-transmitted diseases, which can penetrate the skin through bare feet. Wearing shoes can help prevent these diseases, and the long-term physical and cognitive harm they cause.
•Wearing shoes also prevents feet from getting cuts and sores. Not only are these injuries painful, they also are dangerous when wounds become infected.
•Many times children can’t attend school barefoot because shoes are a required part of their uniform. If they don’t have shoes, they don’t go to school. If they don’t receive an education, they don’t have the opportunity to realize their potential.
They are worth checking out.
How Will You Measure Your Life?
This was Clayton Christensen’s commencement address to the Harvard Business School’s class of 2010. It is fantastic. Here’s an excerpt — but the whole thing is worth reading:
When people who have a high need for achievement—and that includes all Harvard Business School graduates—have an extra half hour of time or an extra ounce of energy, they’ll unconsciously allocate it to activities that yield the most tangible accomplishments. And our careers provide the most concrete evidence that we’re moving forward. You ship a product, finish a design, complete a presentation, close a sale, teach a class, publish a paper, get paid, get promoted. In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave every day. It’s really not until 20 years down the road that you can put your hands on your hips and say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.” You can neglect your relationship with your spouse, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating. People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.
If you study the root causes of business disasters, over and over you’ll find this predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate gratification. If you look at personal lives through that lens, you’ll see the same stunning and sobering pattern: people allocating fewer and fewer resources to the things they would have once said mattered most.
What Does it Mean to be Proactive?
The term proactive means more than you may realize. Here is a good explanation from Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits:
While the word proactivity is now fairly common in management literature, it is a word you won’t find in most dictionaries. It means more than merely taking initiative [emphasis added]. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. [Which means that] our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.
Look at the word responsibility — “response-ability” — the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.
Because we are, by nature, proactive, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default, chosen to empower those things to control us.
In making such a choice, we become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn’t, it affects their attitude and their performance. Proactive people can carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them. They are value driven; and if their value is to produce good quality work, it isn’t a function of whether the weather is conducive to it or not.
Reactive people are also affected by their social environment, by the “social weather.” When people treat them well, they feel well; when people don’t, they become defensive or protective. Reactive people build their emotional lives around the behavior of others, empowering the weaknesses of other people to control them.
The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values — carefully thought about, selected, and internalized values.
Proactive people are still influenced by external stimuli, whether physical, social, or psychological. But their response to the stimuli, conscious or unconscious, is a value-based choice or response.
The Difference Between Working Hard and Workaholism
From Jim Collins’ Beyond Entrepreneurship: Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company:
There’s no getting around the need for hard work. It’s a given. It comes with the territory.
However, there is a big difference between hard work and workaholism. You work hard to get something done. A workaholic, on the other hand, works out of compulsion — fear of some sort. Workaholism is unhealthy and destructive. Hard work is healthy, invigorating, and can be practiced up until the day you die, whereas workaholism leads to burn-out.
We know some effective leaders who work only 40-50 hours per week, but who nonetheless classify as very hard workers — their level of intensity and concentration when at work is incredibly high. Conversely, we know some workaholics who work 90 hours per week and are basically ineffective. More is not necessarily better.
The 5 Basic Conditions People Need in Order to Execute Well
From Jim Collins’s book Beyond Entrepreneurship: Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company:
1. People execute well if they’re clear on what they need to do. How can people possibly do well if they don’t have a clear idea of what “doing well” means — if they don’t have clear goals, benchmarks, and expectations?
2. People execute well if they have the right skills for the job. The right skills come from talents, temperament, and proper training.
3. People execute well if they’re given freedom and support. No one does a good job with people looking over his shoulder; when people are treated like children, they’ll lower themselves to those expectations. Also, people need the tools and support to do their job well. To use an extreme illustration, imagine how difficult it would be for Federal Express employees to make on-time delivery without reliable trucks.
4. People execute well if they’re appreciated for their efforts. All people want their efforts to be appreciated. We’ve consciously chosen the term appreciated rather than rewarded because it more accurately captures that excellent performers value respect and appreciation as much as, and often even more than, money.
5. People execute well if they see the importance of their work.
This is very perceptive and right on, on all fronts. If you miss even one of these components, you have a recipe for frustration among your people.
Rudy Giuliani on Reading
From his book Leadership:
I believe that if you read enough about something, you’re going to unravel its mystery, and will ultimately understand the fundamentals in a deeper way than simple observation would provide. Then, if you have an inquiring mind, you can apply yourself to that subject and have success in ways not experienced even by those who have spent much more time on it.
The Knowledge Worker Can Only be Helped, Not Supervised in Detail
From Drucker in The Effective Executive:
The knowledge worker cannot be supervised closely or in detail. He can only be helped. But he must direct himself, and he must direct himself toward performance and contribution, that is, toward effectiveness.
Further:
The motivation of the knowledge worker depends on his being effective, on his being able to achieve. If effectiveness is lacking in his or her work, his commitment to work and to contribution will soon wither, and he will become a time-server going through the motions from 9-5.
Your Brain at Work
Here’s another book I’ve recently dipped in to: Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long. Based on what I’ve read so far, it’s an enjoyable discussion of why your brain works the way it does in relation to various issues of productivity (for example, why you can’t multi-task).
Here’s an interesting paragraph:
While you can hold several chunks of information in mind at once, you can’t perform more than one conscious process at a time with these chunks without impacting performance. We now have three limitations: the stage takes a lot of energy to run, it can hold only a handful of actors at a time, and these actors can play only one scene at a time.
And here’s another very interesting point on the consequences of being “always on”:
“Always on” may not be the most productive way to work. One of the reasons for this will become clearer in the chapter on staying cool under pressure; however, in summary, the brain is being forced to be on “alert” far too much. This increases what is known as your allostatic load, which is a reading of stress hormones and other factors relating to a sense of threat. The wear and tear has an impact. As Stone says, “This always on, anywhere, anytime, anyplace era has created an artificial sense of constant crisis. What happens to mammals in a state of constant crisis is the adrenalized fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in. It’s great when tigers are chasing us. How many of those five hundred emails a day is a tiger?”
… [Also], the surprise result of being always on is that not only do you get a negative effect on mental performance, but it also tends to increase the total number of emails you get. People notice you respond to issues quickly, so they send you more issues to respond to.
What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
A friend of mine recently recommended The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. I haven’t read it yet, but it looks good. Here is a short description of some of the author’s findings:
Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic — a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption — and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection.
Goodreads
Goodreads seems to be worth checking out. It provides an easy, online way to keep track of what you are reading and recommend books to others.
(A recent commenter pointed pointed this out to me — thanks!)
Why Do Productivity Systems Exist at All?
Why even have a productivity system (such as GTD) at all? There are two reasons:
- We need the ability to prioritize and sequence tasks
- We need the ability to defer tasks without forgetting them
All of this flows from having more things to do than we can do immediately. Since you can’t do everything at once, you need an easy way to identify what is most important and sequence tasks in order of importance.
And, since you can’t do everything at once, you need an easy way to put things off to another day or time, without forgetting them altogether.
Don’t be a Mrs. Splitplum
A great word from Todd Wilson:
I never tire of reading Charles Spurgeon. Virtually everything I read of his I agree with and enjoy and find profitable.
How about this encouragement I came across this morning in his little book, Counsel to Christian Workers: Don’t be a Mrs. Splitplum!
Who, you may be wondering, is Mrs. Splitplum?
She was the wife of a grocer who always cut the plums in two for fear that there would be an ounce more plum than the buyer had paid for. She didn’t want to give a fraction more than was bought.
“Ah,” says Spurgeon, drawing a lesson from this quaint anecdote, “there are many Splitplums in religion. They do not want to do more for Jesus than may be absolutely necessary.” Just so much, but no more. Just what is fair and equitable in their service to the Lord.
Don’t be a Mrs. Splitplum is Spurgeon’s point. Instead, be like the woman with the alabaster jar of perfume who spent it not miserly or calculatingly or cautiously, but lavishly, extravagantly, indeed even wastefully in the service of her Lord (Matthew 26:6-13).
“Christ’s servants delight to give so much as to be thought wasteful, for they feel that when they have in the judgment of others done extravagantly for Christ, they have but begun to show their hearts’ love for his dear name.”
Thank you, Todd!
A New Way of Reading RSS Feeds
Times looks like a helpful new RSS reader. The latest issue of Mac Life says it “feels like reading a really smart newspaper stocked with your favorite RSS feeds.” Here’s the summary from their site:
What is Times?
Times is a unique and innovative newsreader for Mac OS X Leopard. By rethinking the way you read news, we’ve engineered the best possible news experience straight from the ground up.Instead of treating news like email (as most RSS readers do), Times presents you with headlines and photos from a variety of sources all in one place, letting you more easily discover the news you want to read. Like your own personal newspaper, you can put feeds into separate areas, create pages for different subjects, and more.
Upcoming Lausanne 12 Cities Conversation Thursday Night
I’m looking forward to attending the Lausanne Congress this fall in South Africa. Prior to the congress they are hosting 12 conversations in 12 cities to start a conversation on major issues facing the church such as global poverty, injustice, world evangelization, and more. The next one is this Thursday night at Saddleback Church. It will also be webcast live (7:00-9:00 Pacific Time). You can find more info here.
Also, here is the description from that page:
The Saddleback Conversation Gathering
Global Poverty, Injustice, Other World Faiths, HIV/AIDS, Religious Persecution
We live in a new world with new realities, and it’s time for a new conversation about the internal struggles and external pressures facing the Church. 12 Cities | 12 Conversations, hosted by the Lausanne Movement, are free gatherings in strategic US cities to facilitate conversation among church leaders, thinkers, pastors, authors, musicians, advocates, artists, social entrepreneurs, and YOU.
Lower the Bar in the Short-Term to Raise it in the Long-Term
Pictures from the Iceland Volcano
Here are some really amazing pictures from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.
Drucker on Making Strengths Productive
From Drucker’s The Effective Executive:
The effective executive makes strength productive. He knows that one cannot build on weakness. To achieve results, one has to use all the available strengths–the strengths of associates, the strengths of the superior, and one’s own strengths. These strengths are the true opportunities. To make strength productive is the unique purpose of organization. It cannot, of course, overcome the weaknesses with which each of us is abundantly endowed. But it can make them irrelevant. Its task is to use the strength of each man as a building block for joint performance.
About
You've found Matt Perman's blog on doing things better in life, work, business, and society.
Learn more Contact me Facebook Twitter
Keep Updated
Subscribe by email
