Archives for August 2011

2 Tips for Overcoming Procrastination

August 30, 2011 by mattperman 11 Comments

A lot of productivity advice seems to focus on giving you tips to stay focused on and get motivated to do things you don’t want to do. I’m actually not into that sort of thing.

I think that if you are doing a lot of work where you have to “goad” yourself to get it done, you are probably in the wrong job. Plus, a lot of the detailed tactics for self-motivation don’t work long-term. It is far better to make procrastination a non-issue, which is what my first point gets at.

1. Love what you do

The best motivation is to love what you do. It’s far better to tackle the “problem” of motivation at the higher level so that you don’t even need to deal with the more detailed and specific motivational tactics.

The three components of motivation are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. If you find yourself needing to be motivated, rather than identifying tactics like “reward yourself after you get done with a hard task,” take a look at whether you believe in the purpose of your tasks (and, before that, actually know the purpose!), whether the tasks are too hard (or too easy), and whether you have the freedom to do them in your own way.

The best type of motivation is to want to do the things you have to do — to be pulled toward them by a desire to do them and make a difference and serve others — rather than to be pushed towards them through carrots and sticks (rewards and punishments). Intrinsic motivation trumps extrinsic motivation every time. When you like your work, procrastination typically becomes a non-issue.

Now, at the same time, there will always be tasks now and then that we just find ourselves entirely dis-inclined to do. Maybe it’s even a task we ordinary love, but we are extremely tired that day and yet are on a deadline and need to get it done. Or maybe there are other factors interfering. In these cases, tactics can sometimes be useful. Here’s one I’ve found useful.

2. Take Breaks After Starting the Next Part of a Task, Rather Than In Between

When you take a break, don’t take your break at a natural stopping point. Instead, get to a natural stopping point, and then start into the next segment of the task. This gets you into it a bit and gets your wheels turning. Then take your break. While you are on your break, your mind will be inclined to get going again, since you’ve already started in to it. So it will be easier to come back from the break and avoid letting the break turn into an extended period of procrastination.

3 Things to Remember When Critiquing Someone's Theology

August 29, 2011 by mattperman Leave a Comment

Justin Taylor:

Critique — done well — is a gift to the one being criticized. We should welcome the opportunity to have our thinking corrected and clarified. We see through a glass dimly, and God has gifted the church with teachers who often see things more clearly than we do at present. In God’s providence and through the gift of common grace he may also use unbelievers to critique our views, showing our logical mistakes or lack of clarity.

Critique done poorly — whether through overstatement, misunderstanding, caricature — is a losing proposition for all. It undermines the credibility of the critic and deprives the one being criticized from the opportunity to improve his or her position.

It’s impossible in a blog post to set forth a comprehensive methodology of critique — if such a thing can even be done. But there are at least three exhortations worth remembering about criticism.

His three exhortations are:

Understand before you critique
Be self-critical in how you critique
Consider the alternatives of what you are critiquing

Read the whole thing.

Martin Luther On Email

August 29, 2011 by mattperman 3 Comments

Martin Luther in 1516, before email:

“I would need almost two secretaries; I do almost nothing all day but write letters.” Luther and His Katie, 35

What Does it Mean to be Pure? Or, How We Often Minimize What Jesus Really Means When He Says We are to Be "Pure in Heart"

August 29, 2011 by mattperman 4 Comments

Our daughter’s name is Kate, which means “pure.”

The other night I came in to tuck her in a bit late, and she said “I just got done praying.” Which is fantastic (she’s 6). I said to her “what did you pray for?” One of the things she said was: “I prayed that I would be pure, just like my name means.”

That is really, really great. Lord, may it be so.

Kate’s prayer echoes, of course, Matthew 5:8 (though she doesn’t know it!): “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Now, being 6, she probably has a very small idea of what it means to be “pure.” But most of us who are adults do, too.

Most of think of purity mainly in relation to lust. To be pure is to refrain from lustful thoughts and lustful desires. That is critically important (Matthew 5:27-30). And, it flows from being pure in heart. But that is not the main meaning of purity. The main meaning is far, far more.

Jesus expounds on what it means to be “pure in heart” in two other places in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth . . . but lay up for yourselves treasure sin heaven … for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy [literally: “single”], your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:19-24).

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).

It was always puzzling to me what Jesus meant by “the eye is the lamp of the body” in 6:22 But if you look at it, you see he has simply switched metaphors.

Jesus just got done telling us to lay up treasures in heaven, not on earth, so that our heart will be in heaven — not on earth. Then he says “the eye is the lamp of the body” and that if it is healthy, everything else is right for you. In other words, what he has just said about our heart — fix it on heaven — he is expounding on, only now using the metaphor of the “eye.”

He is saying, in effect, “let your eye be single — be focused on just one thing, on heavenly realities.” Let your eye — your heart — be set on God.

He then re-iterates this in different terms in the verse next verse, setting it against the backdrop of the biggest competitor to God for many: money. “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

In other words, once again, you cannot have two ultimate priorities. “No one can serve two masters.” You can only have one master, one ultimate priority, and it is to be God.

Jesus then applies this to worry (for worry is often a result of not having our priorities straight), and then re-states the point again in different words: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (6:33). Seek first the kingdom of God. Let that, and that only, be your ultimate priority and aim. If you have other ultimate aims, your heart is not “pure” — it is not single and wholly devoted to God, but divided. The pure heart is the heart that is fully devoted to God, set on heaven, loving him and not ultimately other things like money.

Does this make us so heavenly minded we are no earthly good? Is Jesus saying “don’t care anything about this world? Let ‘the things of earth become strangely dim’?” No. To have God as your ultimate priority is not to become a hermit and care nothing for this life; it is rather to care even more for this life — but for a different reason. We now care about it because we care about loving others and living out the priorities of God’s kingdom in the face of injustice and hardship and trouble — as Jesus said right at the start of the sermon: “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Love for God lives itself out through love for our neighbor (1 John 4:21).

Bringing this all back to Matthew 5:8: To be “pure in heart” means to be single-minded for the glory of God. It is to have God and his kingdom as your ultimate priority, with no competitors. It is to serve one master, not two. It is to have a single eye, treasuring heaven and Jesus more than anything in this world. It is for your ultimate aim and priority and value in life to be knowing Jesus Christ and, from that, living a life of good works so that he, not you, is glorified (Matthew 5:16).

Clearly, the result of this will be that you are not ruled by lust (5:27-30) — or anger (5:21-26), or undependability (5:33-37), or retaliation (5:38-41), or stinginess (5:42), or lack of grace and generosity (5:43-48), or love of the praise of men (6:1-4), or money (6:24). The entire sermon, in a sense, is an exposition of what it looks like when your heart is pure. And so we see that having a pure heart is not simply a matter of not lusting, but a whole lot more. And, beyond that, we see that all of these qualities of a pure heart stem from the fact that you are single-mindedly devoted to the glory of God.

That’s what it means to be “pure in heart” — and that’s what I pray for my daughter.